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LECTURES 


BRITISH  POETS. 


HENRY    REED. 

LATE   PROFESSOR   OF  EMGUHH   LITERATURE   I.N   THE    UNIVERSITY   OF    PEXNSYLVANLi. 


IN    TWO    VOLUMES. 

VOL.   I. 


PHILADELPHIA: 
PARRY    &     M'MIL  L^X  N, 

SUCCESSORS  TO  A.  HART,  UTI  CARET  &  HART. 

1857. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1857,  by 
WILLIAM    B.  REED, 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the 
Eastern  District  of  Pennsylvania. 


STEREOTYPED   BY  L.  JOHNSON  &  CO. 

PHILADELPHIA. 
PRINTED  BY   T.   K.  4   P.   O.   COLLINS. 


STACK 
ANNtA 


(/.  / 

PREFACE. 


THE  great  success  of  the  two  volumes  of  my 
brother's  lectures — the  first  on  "English  Lite- 
rature," and  the  second  on  "  History  as  illustrated 
by  Shakspeare's  Plays"  —  has  induced  me  to 
publish  another  series,  still  more  complete,  on  the 
"  British  Poets,"  which  was  delivered  by  Mr.  Reed 
in  1841.  These  lectures  are  printed  from  the 
author's  manuscript,  with  no  other  alteration  than 
the  omission  of  passages  which  he  had  used  in  his 
second  course. 

An  addition  has  been  made  to  these  volumes  of 
two  essays  on  kindred  subjects, — one  on  "  English 
Sonnets,"  and  another  on  "  Hartley  Coleridge." 

The  present  volumes  are  probably  the  last  of- 


6  PREFACE. 

my  brother's  works  which  I  shall  publish.  The 
lectures  already  issued  have  been  most  kindly 
received  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic ;  and  it 
would  be  ungraceful  were  I  to  omit,  for  myself 
and  his  still  nearer  family,  an  expression  of  the 
deep  feeling  with  which  this  appreciation  has 
inspired  us. 

W.  B.  E. 

PHILADELPHIA,  February  13,  1857. 


CONTENTS. 


LECTURES  ON  ENGLISH  POETRY. 


LECTURE  I. 

Object  of  the  course — Poetry  the  eminence  of  literature — The 
history  of  literature  illustrated  by  general  history  and  bio- 
graphy— The  lives  of  Spenser  and  Milton — A  catholic  taste  in 
poetry — Variety  of  poetry — Intolerance  of  literary  judgment 
— Rymer  and  Voltaire  on  Shakspeare — Johnson  on  Milton — 
Jeffrey  on  Wordsworth — Qualifications  of  an  enlightened  critic 
— Utilitarian  criticism — The  true  use  of  poetry — Its  deprecia- 
tion and  abuse — Albums  and  scrap-books  —  Ben  Jonson's 
panegyric  on  hie  art — Wordsworth — Object  of  these  lectures 
not  to  encourage  poetical  composition — Sydney's  Defence — 
Connection  of  poetry  and  science — The  spirit  of  our  times — 
Materialism  and.  infidelity  —  Influence  on  imaginative  power 
— Vindication  of  poetry Page  13 

LECTURE  II. 

The  nature  of  Poetry  and  its  ministrations — Imaginative  capacity 
— Lord  Bacon's  view — Milton's — Poetry  a  divine  emanation — 
Its  foundation  is  truth — The  truth  of  inner  life — Painting  and 
Sculpture — Poetry  an  imitative  art — The  Child  and  the  Shell 
— Scientific  investigation  of  truth — Human  sympathy  culti- 
vated by  Poetry — Immortality — Spiritual  aspirations-  -Stoicism 

7 


CONTENTS. 

irreconcilable  with  Poetry — Loyalty  and  chivalry — The  songs 
of  Israel — Taste,  a  wrong  name — Mental  inactivity  incon- 
sistent with  criticism — Due  proportion  of  intellectual  powers — 
Walter  Scott  and  Sir  Philip  Sydney Page  45 

LECTURE  III. 


The  dawn  of  English  Poesy — Difficulties  of  describing  it — 
Obsolete  language — Chaucer  the  father  of  English  Poetry — 
Latin  Poetry — Revival  of  Learning — English  Language — Its 
Transition — Statutes  of  Edward  the  Third — Gower — Age  of 
Chivalry — Invasion  of  France — Cressy  and  Poitiers — The 
Black  Prince — The  Church — Wiclif — Chaucer's  birth,  A.D. 
1328 — Friendship  with  Gower — Taste  for  natural  scenery — 
The  Flower  and  the  Leaf — Burns's  Daisy — Romaunt  of  the 
Rose — Canterbury  Tales — Its  outline — His  respect  for  the 
female  sex — Chaucer's  influence  on  the  English  language — 
"The  Well  of  English  undefiled" — His  versification  —  His 
death,  A.D.  1400 Page  81 

LECTURE  IV. 

SPENSER   AND   THE    MINSTRELSY. 

Relapse  in  English  Poetry  after  Chaucer  from  1400  to  1553 — Its 
causes — The  Wars  of  the  Roses — Ecclesiastical  disturbance — 
The  Reformation  and  Queen  Elizabeth — Wyatt  and  Surrey — 
The  Sonnet — Blank  Verse — Sackville — Elizabeth's  reign  and 
character — Classical  learning — The  British  Church — Spenser's 
birth,  in  A.D.  1553 — The  Shepherd's  Calendar — Its  Allegory — 
The  Friendship  of  Sydney — Spenser's  Residence  in  Ireland — 
The  Fairy  Queen,  in  1590— Sir  Walter  Raleigh— The  great 
work  of  Spenser — Milton's  praise — Spenser's  mighty  Imagi- 
nation— Appeal  to  human  sympathies  —  Chivalric  spirit — 
Religious  aim — Mr.  Hallam's  criticism — Hymn  to  Beauty — 
The  Spenserian  Stanza — Alliteration — His  blemishes — The 
Epithalamium — Death,  A.D.  1598 — The  British  Minstrelsy  and 
Ballads — Kinmont  \Villie — Sir  Patrick  Spens — Armstrong's 
Good-night Page  113 


CONTENTS.  9 

LECTURE  V. 

SHAKSPEARE. 

Spenser's  death  and  Shakspeare's  birth — Influence  of  the  age 
— Independence  of  his  imaginary  creations — Small  knowledge 
of  the  individual — Unselfishness  of  Genius — A  spiritual  voice 
in  all  time — Shakspeare  traditions — His  birth,  A.D.  1564 — 
Death,  A.D.  1616 — Cervantes's  death — Epitaph — Education — 
Ben  Jonson — Power  over  language — The  Dramatic  Art  con- 
genial to  his  genius — Kenilworth  and  Queen  Elizabeth — Shak- 
speare in  London — The  Armada — His  patriotism  and  loyalty — 
Subjectiveness  of  the  modern  European  mind — Shakspeare 
and  Bacon — Venus  and  Adonis — Lucrece — The  Dramas — 
The  Sonnets — Dramatic  Art  in  England — Sacred  Dramas — 
Mysteries  and  Moralities — Heywood — Minor  Dramatists — 
"  The  gentle  Shakspeare" — The  acting  drama — Primitive 
Theatres — Modern  adaptations — Lear  and  Richard  III. — 
The  supernatural  of  the  Drama — Macbeth — The  Tempest 
his  last  poem..  Page  160 

LECTURE  VL 


Abundance  of  biographical  materials — Dr.  Johnson's  life — 
Milton  aniong  the  great  prose  writers — Milton's  conception 
of  his  calling  as  a  poet — Poetry  the  highest  aim  of  human 
intellect — Milton's  youthful  genius — Study  of  Hebrew  poetry 
— Latin  poem  to  his  father — The  rural  home — Poetic  genius 
improved  by  study — Visits  to  the  London  Theatres — Thought- 
ful culture  of  his  powers — Allegro  and  Penseroso — Lycidas — 
Dr.  Johnson's  judgments  on  this  poem — Masque  of  Comus — 
Faith  and  Hope  and  Chastity — The  Hymn  on  the  Nativity — 
Power  and  Melody  of  the  Miltonic  versification — Visit  to 
Galileo — Milton  in  Rome — Story  of  Tasso's  life — Influence 
over  Milton— The  Rebellion— The  condition  of  the  English 
monarchy — The -poet's  domestic  troubles — Sonnets — Johnson's 
criticisms  on  them — Milton's  Latin  despatches — Sonnet  on 


10  CONTEXTS. 


the  Piedmont  persecution — Coleridge  and  Wordsworth  on  the 
moral  sublimity  of  the  poet's  life — The  Paradise  Lost — The 
character  of  Satan — Coleridge's  criticism — The  grandeur  of 
the  epic — The  Paradise  Regained — The  Samson  Agonistes — 
Poetry  a  relief  to  the  Poet's  overcharged  heart Page  199 


LECTURE   VII. 

MINOR  POETRY  OP  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY. 

Character  of  the  transition  from  Milton  to  Dryden — The  rank  of 
Dryden  among  the  poets — English  imagination  in  his  age — 
Influence  of  Milton's  genius  upon  his  contemporaries  and 
successors — Wordsworth's  apostrophe  to  Milton — Decline  of 
imaginative  energy — Metaphysical  poetry — Daniel  and  Dray- 
ton — Drayton's  Polyolbion — Lamb's  notice  of  this  poem — 
Donne  and  Cowley — The  sin  of  this  school  of  poetry — Poetry 
a  subject  for  studious  thoughtfulness — Donne's  "Lecture" — 
Character  of  Cowley's  genius — His  prose  essays  — "  The 
Complaint" — The  conceits  of  the  poetry  of  this  period — 
Herbert's  lines  on  Virtue ;  Life ;  Peace; — Herbert's  self- 
criticism — Sacred  poetry  of  the  seventeenth  century — Robert 
Herrick — His  Litany  to  the  Holy  Spirit — The  music  of  his 
verse — Literary  interest  of  the  Civil  War — Lord  Chatham 
on  the  character  of  this  struggle — The  Puritan  system  adverse 
to  poetic  culture — Richard  Lovelace — "To  Althea,  from 
prison" — George  Wither — His  character — His  address  to  his 
Muse — A  tribute  to  Wither's  memory Page  233 

LECTURE  VIII. 

THE   AGE    OP   THE    RESTORATION  :     DRTDEN. 

Ambiguities  in  the  general  titles  adopted  to  designate  particular 
literary  eras — The  last  quarter  of  the  seventeenth  century 
the  age  of  Dryden — The  degraded  tastes  of  his  times — The 
alliance  of  high  poetry  with  virtue — The  true  standard  of 
poetic  merit — Dryden's  poetry  a  reflection  of  the  times  of 
Charles  II. — Profligacy  of  that  age — Character  of  Charles 
Stuart — The  spirit  of  poetry  is  a  spirit  of  enthusiasm — The 


CONTEXTS.  11 


debasing  effects  of  the  Civil  Wars — Shaftesbury  as  Lord- 
Chancellor — Reception  of  the  Paradise  Lost — Winstanley's 
Lives  of  the  English  Poets — Milton's  exposition  of  kingly 
duty — The  Drama  during  the  Age  of  the  Restoration  — 
Dryden's  Plays — Defence  of  rhyming  Tragedies — "The  Fall 
of  Innocence" — Dryden's  alteration  of  "The  Tempest" — 
"Absalom  and  Achitophel" — Buckingham — Literary  larceny 
— Sir  Egerton  Brydges's  Lines  on  Milton — "  The  Hind  and 
the  Panther" — "Alexander's  Feast" — Ode  for  St.  Cecilia's  Day 
— Dryden's  later  poetry Page  267 

LECTURE  IX. 

THE  AGE  OP  QUEEN  AXNE  :  POPE ;  AND  POETS  OP  THE  LATER  PART 
OP  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY:  COWPER. 

The  Age  of  Pope — Change  in  the  social  relations  of  Authors — 
Language  of  Dedications — Periodical  publications — State  of 
British  parties — Lord  Mahon's  illustrations  of  the  age — Spirit 
of  that  age — Alexander  Pope — His  aspirations — His  want  of 
sympathy  with  his  predecessors — Imitation  of  French  poetry 
— Pope's  edition  of  Shakspeare — Pope's  Pastorals — Corrup- 
tions of  the  English  tongue — John  Dennis's  Emendations  of 
Shakspeare — Pope's  versification — The  "Town" — The  Moon- 
light Scene  in  the  Iliad — Pope  and  Milton  contrasted — 
"Eloisa  to  Abelard"— The  "Rape  of  the  Lock" — Pope's 
Satires — The  "  Essay  on  Criticism" — The  "  Essay  on  Man" — 
Lord  Bolingbroke — Orthodoxy  of  the  "  Essay  on  Man" —  His 
appreciation  of  Female  Character — William  Cowper — His 
insanity  —  "  The  Task"  — "John  Gilpin"  — "The  Dirge"— 
"The  Castaway" — "Cowper's  Grave" Page  298 


LECTURES 

ON 

ENGLISH   POETRY. 


LECTUEE  I. 

Object  of  the  course — Poetry  the  eminence  of  literature — The  history 
of  literature  illustrated  by  general  history  and  biography — The 
lives  of  Spenser  and  Milton  —  A  catholic  taste  in  poetry — 
Variety  of  poetry — Intolerance  of  literary  judgment — Rymer  and 
Voltaire  on  Shakspeare — Johnson  on  Milton — Jeffrey  on  Words- 
worth— Qualifications  of  an  enlightened  critic — Utilitarian  criticism 
— The  true  use  of  poetry — Its  depreciation  and  abuse — Albums  and 
scrap-books — Ben  Jonson's  panegyric  on  his  art — Wordsworth — 
Object  of  these  lectures  not  to  encourage  poetical  composition — 
Sydney's  Defence — Connection  of  poetry  and  science — The  spirit 
of  our  times — Materialism  and  infidelity — Influence  on  imaginative 
power — Vindication  of  poetry. 

THE  course  of  Lectures  I  am  about  attempting  is  the 
first  of  a  contemplated  series  upon  English  Poetry,  un- 
dertaken as  well  from  an  uncalculating  impulse,  as  from 
a  conviction  that,  in  our  systems  of  education,  it  is  a 
department  more  than  any  neglected.  The  treasures  of 
the  English  tongue  are  sacrificed  to  the  attainment  of 
those  which  are  more  recondite  in  the  dead  or  foreign 

13 


LECTURE    FIRST. 


languages.  As,  year  after  year,  I  have  wandered  through, 
the  forsaken  region  (if  I  may  be  indulged  in  so  far  speak- 
ing of  myself)  and  contemplated  the  mighty  achievements 
of  our  English  mind,  a  glowing  admiration  has  kindled, 
higher  and  higher,  the  hope  that  it  might  not  be  beyond 
my  strength  to  be  the  humble  guide  of  others  to  the  same 
unfailing  springs  of  intellectual  happiness. 

The  portion  of  literature  to  be  treated  of  is  that  which 
may  be  regarded  as  its  eminence, — its  Poetry.  I  have 
ventured  to  speak  of  it  as  the  noblest  portion  of  our  noble 
literature ;  and,  if  I  shall  succeed  in  awakening  a  thought- 
ful admiration  of  that  which  has  been  given  to  the  world 
by  the  souls  of  mighty  poets  finding  utterance  in  the 
music  of  English  words,  that  opinion  will  not  be  con- 
demned for  its  extravagance.  It  is  a  large  field  to  travel 
over ;  and,  therefore,  among  the  introductory  topics  at  pre- 
sent to  be  noticed,  it  is  necessary  to  advert  to  the  general 
plan,  which  will,  however,  more  satisfactorily  appear  when 
practically  illustrated  in  the  succeeding  lectures.  It  will 
be  my  aim  to  convey  such  information  on  the  history  of 
English  poetry  as  the  circumstances  under  which  we 
meet  will  allow.  To  penetrate  the  obscurity  of  an  early 
age,  and  thence  to  trace  the  progress  of  poetry  from  its 
rude  beginnings  down  to  modern  years, — to  show  it  in  its 
successive  eras, — to  discover  the  connection  between  the 
poetry  and  the  spirit  of  the  age  acting  'and  reacting  on 
each  other, — to  see  how  at  one  time  the  muse  has  soared 
and  at  another  crept, — are  topics  which  the  idea  of  these 
lectures  comprehends,  how  far  soever  the  execution  may 
fall  short  of  it.  And  here  let  me  beg  your  reflection  on 
the  remark  that  there  are  few  higher  functions  of  criti- 
cism than  to  reveal  the  connection  between  illustrious 


SPENSER    AND    MILTON.  15 


literary  production  and  the  contemporaneous  state  of 
opinion  and  feeling,  and  to  show  especially  the  poet's  in- 
spirations in  their  relation  to  dominant  thoughts  and 
passions.  For  it  is  not  to  be  questioned  that,  in  God's 
providence  over  the  destinies  of  the  human  race,  men  are 
called  into  being  with  powers  to  cheer  or  rebuke  the  spirit 
of  their  times  with  voices  prophetic  of  weal  or  wo. 
This  consideration  with  regard  to  literary  history  will, 
therefore,  involve,  to  a  certain  extent,  allusion  to  what  is 
usually  and  eminently  entitled  history;  I  mean  the  narra- 
tive of  national  events.  Further  than  this,  comprehensive 
criticism  embraces  considerations  of  a  biographical  cha- 
racter; for,  in  studying  the  works  of  genius,  it  is  a  matter 
of  no  slight  interest  to  examine  the  gradual  structure,  or 
rather  growth,  of  the  individual  powers  that  have  produced 
them.  I  should,  for  instance,  deem  that  but  an  imperfect 
comment  on  the  Fairy  Queen  which  took  no  heed  of 
the  age  in  which  its  author  lived, — a  time  animated  by  a 
high,  adventurous  spirit,  when  the  sentiment  of  chivalry 
was  still  for  a  season  outliving  its  institutions  and  usages, 
and  which  the  poet  sought  imaginatively  to  perpetuate  in 
his  matchless  allegory.  It  would  also  be  a  faulty  negli- 
gence to  turn  away  from  the  personal  history  which  por- 
trays Spenser  embodying  his  high  imaginings  while 
dwelling  in  a  barbarous  island,  and,  at  length,  heart- 
stricken  with  neglect  and  domestic  sorrow.  It  comes 
within  the  range  of  an  enlarged  criticism  to  tell  of  the 
young  instincts  and  presages  of  Milton's  genius,  such  as 
break  forth  in  the  exquisite  inspiration  of  Comus,  and 
thence  to  trace  his  sombre-coloured  life  till,  after  having 
consorted  with  the  stern  Republicans,  defending  their 
sternest  deed  and  eulogizing  their  mightiest  chieftain, 


16  LECTURE    FIRST. 


he  retired,  in  danger  and  the  darkness  of  a  hopeless 
blindness,  to  build  up  the  immortal  epic  of  the  Paradise 
Lost. 

But  a  course  of  literary  lectures  must  comprehend  more 
than  the  communication  of  historical  and  biographical 
facts,  the  details  of  which,  orally  addressed,  are  apt  to  be 
unsatisfactory  and  often  wearisome.  The  mind  may  be 
oppressed  by  the  accumulation  of  isolated  facts,  which  are 
never  more  troublesome  than  when  unprovided  with  some 
principle  by  means  of  which  they  may  be  marshalled  into 
order.  A  paramount  object,  therefore,  which  I  have  pro- 
posed, is  the  cultivation  of  a  theory  of  criticism  to  be 
familiarized  by  application  to  the  most  worthy  effusions 
of  the  English  muse,  from  the  first  great  outbreak  in  the 
happy  freshness  of  Chaucer  and  the  early  nameless 
minstrels,  down  to  the  majestic  and  meditative  imagina- 
tion of  Wordsworth.  When  I  speak  of  a  theory  of  criti- 
cism, let  me  not  be  understood  as  having  in  my  thoughts 
any  hypothesis  fashioned  from  the  study  of  some  parti- 
cular form  of  poetic  invention  and  narrowed  to  it,  but  an 
ample  groundwork,  built  in  the  philosophy  of  the  human 
spirit,  and  fitted,  therefore,  to  sustain  a  catlwllc  taste  iu 
the  estimate  of  literary  productions.  The  mind  is  too 
apt  to  become  capricious  and  contracted,  bigoted  in  its 
literary  creed,  and  cramped  and  enfeebled  by  a  species  of 
favouritism ;  so  that  nothing  has  been  more  common  than 
attempts  to  strip  the  laurel  from  the  brow  of  a  poet  like 
Pope,  or  to  refuse  it  to  that  great  living  master  of  the  art 
who  has  passed,  through  the  obloquy  of  a  scornful  igno- 
rance, to  his  fame.  In  all  this  there  is  grievous  error.  And, 
let  me  say,  this  narrowness  of  taste  and  judgment  must 
carry  with  it  its  own  penalty;  for  greatly  does  it  diminish 


A    CATHOLIC     TASTE     IN    POETRY.  17 


the  occasions  of  literary  enjoyment.  The  intellect,  like 
the  heart,  has  its  hundred  avenues  of  happiness,  and  it  is 
not  wise  to  close  or  abandon  any  of  them.  The  true  aim 
of  every  student  should  be  to  acquire  a  taste  which, 
while  it  can  discriminate  between  the  different  endow- 
ments of  different  minds,  can  also  feed  on  all  that  genius 
sets  before  it,  no  matter  how  various  it  may  be.  A 
squeamish  and  fastidious  taste  in  reading  is  a  disease 
which  grows  more  and  more  inveterate  with  indulgence, 
and,  like  a  hypochondriac's  appetite,  makes  its  victim 
alike  more  helpless  and  more  unhealthy.  A  taste  strong 
in  health  is  not  more  ready  to  reject  what  is  unwholesome 
than  to  draw  its  nourishment  from  variety.  The  foo'd  of 
the  mind,  like  that  of  the  body,  is  various,  and  the  func- 
tion of  health  is  to  assimilate  to  itself  the  variety  which 
nature  proffers.  It  is  the  invalid  whose  delicate  digestion 
needs  to  be  pampered  with  dainties.  So  is  it  with  the 
weak  and  uncultivated  iu  intellect.  Genius  pours  out 
its  abundance  for  them  in  vain.  In  this  way  arises 
exclusive  devotion  to  some  one  author,  as  if  wisdom  had 
been  his  monopoly.  While  the  oracle  of  poetry  is  utter- 
ing its  inspirations  in  a  thousand  tones,  there  are  ears 
which  are  deaf  to  all  but  one  of  the  notes  which  issue 
from  the  temple.  Genius  has  its  multitude  of  voices,  like 
nature  with  its  scale  of  sounds,  from  the  thunder  rolling 
along  the  heavens  and  echoed  by  Alps  or  Andes,  down  to 
the  whisper  (to  borrow  one  of  Shakspeare's  sweet  sen- 
tences)— 

"As  gentle 

As  zephyrs,  blowing  below  the  violet, 
Not  wagging  his  sweet  head." — Cyrnbeline. 

Of  this  dulness  consequent  on  contracted  taste  it  would 


18  LECTURE    FIRST. 


not  be  difficult  to  find  instances  to  verify  the  observation. 
But  it  is  more  than  individual  malady,  for  it  spreads  into 
an  epidemic;  and  I  shall  hereafter  have  occasion  to  advert 
to  revolutions  in  literary  opinion,  and  to  show  that  the 
feeblest  voice  had  gained  the  public  ear  which  was  almost 
closed  to  that  of  Milton,  when  he  craved  "fit  audience, 
though  few,"  while  Cowley  was  earning  his  speedy  popu- 
larity; and,  again,  the  glory  of  the  older  poets  fading  be- 
fore the  admiration  of  the  high-wrought  verse  of  Pope. 
An  illustration  within  our  own  memory  was  that  declama- 
tory, undisciplined,  indiscriminate  enthusiasm,  which, 
knowing  no  other  inspiration,  was  in  truth  the  poorest 
tribute  that  could  be  paid  to  genius  such  as  Lord  Byron 
unquestionably  possessed.  The  domain  of  Parnassus  is 
not  so  narrow  as  to  be  susceptible  of  any  such  appropria- 
tion. The  sovereignty  of  even  Homer  or  Shakspeare 
could  hold  no  exclusive  usurpation.  The  sacred  mount 
is  covered  with  the  homesteads  of  the  poets;  some,  in 
modest  humility,  where  its  first  declivity  rises  from  the 
level  of  the  plain;  others,  midway  up  the  mount;  and 
a  few  seated,  where  others  durst  not  soar,  high  as  the 
summit  in  the  upper  air.  The  great  endowment  of  poetry 
has  been  bestowed  in  almost  infinite  degrees  and  forms; 
and  it  is  the  office  of  philosophic  criticism  to  trace  it  in 
its  truth  wherever  it  may  exist : — in  the  homely  ballad 
chanted  in  the  nursery;  in  the  traditionary  songs  of  a 
peasantry ;  in  strains  that  have  kindled  the  spirit  of  a 
people  in  the  hour  of  battle;  in  the  softer  melody  of  love; 
in  the  mournful  elegy;  in  the  bitterness  of  satire;  in 
devotional  hymns,  the  measured  utterance  of  thanksgiving, 
prayer,  and  praise ;  in  the  lofty  aspirations  of  the  medita- 
tive ode;  in  the  lifelike  creation  of  the  drama,  "gor- 


VARIETY    OF    POETRY. 


geous  tragedy  in  sceptred  pall;"  and  in  the  elaborate 
structures  of  the  rarely-attempted  epic.  The  taste  thus 
cultivated  and  strengthened  will  be  safe  from  that  narrow- 
spirited  habit  which  prostrates  the  intellect  in  its  solitary 
idolatry.  The  voice  of  the  muse,  come  whence  it  may, 
if  it  come  in  truth,  will  not  come  in  vain;  for  the  open 
heart  will  give  it  entrance.  So  important  do  I  consider 
the  possession  of  a  catholic  spirit  in  literature  as  the 
means  of  enlarged  intellectual  enjoyment,  that  I  shall 
sedulously  shun  the  adoption  of  any  contracted  poetical 
system,  directing  my  efforts  rather,  in  the  examination  of 
English  poetry,  so  to  discuss  the  subject  as  to  assist  not 
only  in  discriminating,  but  in  appreciating,  the  varieties 
of -merit. 

The  catalogue  of  English  poets  is  voluminous.  The 
mere  enumeration  of  them  and  of  their  writings — if  it 
were  in  my  power  to  give — would  consume  the  time  which 
will  be  at  my  command.  In  a  course,  therefore,  of  lectures 
limited  in  number  as  well  as  length,  some  method  must 
be  adopted  in  treating  a  subject  which,  of  course,  tran- 
scends the  necessary  bounds.  The  annals  of  English 
poetry  offer  a  series  of  names  known  much  more  familiarly 
than  their  productions,  because  fame  has  given  them  an 
elevation  in  the  midst  of  what  Milton  styles  "the  laureate 
fraternity  of  poets."  To  such  names  the  student  of  litera- 
ture first  turns  his  thoughts,  seeking  to  justify  their  fame. 
I  propose,  therefore,  in  travelling  through  this  wide  and 
populous  region  of  literature,  to  select  for  especial  exami- 
nation the  most  illustrious  poets  who  in  regular  succession 
have  enriched  the  language  from  the  period  of  its  forma- 
tion down  to  the  present  time.  Besides,  criticism  on  the 
productions  of  the  masters  in  an  art  possesses  greater  in- 


20  LECTURE    FIRST. 


tercst  and  value  than  on  those  -which  bear  a  fainter  im- 
pression of  the  stamp  of  genius.  It  is  in  the  school  of 
mighty  artists  that  criticism  itself  is  taught.  The  critic 
acquires  skill  by  the  modest  contemplation— the  affection- 
ate study — of  the  works  of  genius.  The  great  English 
poets,  arrayed  as  they  may  be  in  an  almost  unbroken 
chronological  series,  stand  as  the  types  and  emblems  of 
the  literary  spirit  of  their  times;  and  thus  the  progress 
of  literature  may  be  illustrated  by  the  examination  of 
those  who  are  most  prominent  in  its  successive  eras. 
This  method  will  therefore  be  pursued,  with  occasional 
notices  of  others  less  celebrated. 

This  method  will,  I  trust,  unless  grievously  deficient  in 
the  execution,  conduce  to  the  attainment  of  the  best 
purposes  of  criticism,  on  which  I  desire  to  say  a  few 
words  before  passing  to  other  introductory  topics.  The 
main  design  of  poetry  being  to  communicate,  through  the 
medium  of  the  imagination,  pleasures  of  a  highly-intel- 
lectual and  moral  nature,  the  criticism  which  best  sub- 
serves the  cause  is  that  which  illustrates  and  develops 
qualities  in  poetical  composition  adapted  to  effect  such 
results.  Fault-finding — so  far  from  constituting,  as  is  some- 
times supposed,  criticism — is  but  a  subordinate  function, 
necessary,  indeed,  occasionally  to  the  formation  of  a  discri- 
minating judgment.  But,  whenever  the  detection  of  poetical 
irregularities  and  error  is  made  the  chief  purpose,  we  suffer 
ourselves  to  be  cheated  of  the  enjoyment  which  attends 
that  better  habit  of  seeking  for  what  gives  pleasure  in 
preference  to  that  which  gives  pain.  The  best  criticism 
ever  produced  has  been  that  which  had  its  birth  in  a 
genial  admiration  —  a  love  —  of  that  on  which  it  passes 
judgment.  The  worst  criticism  is  that  which  is  en- 


INTOLERANCE    OF    LITERARY    JUDGMENT.  21 


gendered  in  apathy,  spleen,  or  malice.  There  is  no  more 
healthy  mental  exercise  than  the  study  of  a  great  work  of 
art,  if  directed  to  the  discovery  of  the  elements  of  its 
glory,  to  cause  its  sublimity  or  its  beauty  to  he  felt  more 
and  more  deeply,  and  not  only  felt,  hut  understood,  that 
the  understanding  may  have  cognizance  of  that  which  the 
heart  has  loved.  It  is  to  criticism  thus  conducted  in  the 
spirit  of  faith  and  hope  that  genius  vouchsafes  to  make 
the  most  ample  revelation  of  its  glories. 

It  is  important,  too,  to  shun  the  habit  of  dogmatic  criti- 
cism. It  is  a  singular  but  familiar  fact  that  men  are  never 
more  apt  to  be  intolerant  of  difference  of  opinion  than  in 
what  concerns  the  mingled  powers  of  judgment  and  feel- 
ing denominated  taste.  I  need  suggest  no  other  illustration 
than  the  striking  contrariety  of  judgment  on  the  merits  of 
the  most  distinguished  poets  who  have  flourished  in  our  own 
times,  the  discussion  of  which  I  shall  not  now  anticipate 
by  the  expression  of  any  opinion.  To  what  is  this  owing? 
Partly,  no  doubt,  to  variety  of  character,  intellectual  and 
moral;  to  diversity  of  temperament  and  education;  and 
whatsoever  else  makes  one  man  in  some  respects  a  differ- 
ent being  from  hia  neighbour.  Each  reader,  as  well  as  each 
writer,  has  his  peculiar  bent  of  mind,  his  own  way  of 
thinking  and  feeling;  so  that  the  passionate  strains  of 
poetry  will  find  an  adaptation  in  the  heart  of  one,  while 
its  thoughtful,  meditative  inspirations  will  come  home  to 
the  heart  of  another.  This  consideration  must  not  be 
lost  sight  of,  because  it  goes  far  toward  allaying  this 
literary  intolerance,  which,  like  political  or  theological 
intolerance,  is  doubly  disastrous,  for  it  at  the  same  time 
narrows  a  man's  sympathies  and  heightens  his  pride. 
But  the  variety  of  mind  or  of  general  disposition  will 


22  LECTURE    FIRST. 


not  wholly  explain  the  variety  of  literary  opinions.  After 
making  all  due  allowance  in  this  respect,  it  is  not  to  be 
questioned  that  there  is  right  judgment  and  wrong  judg- 
ment,— a  sound  taste  and  a  sickly  taste.  There  are  opi- 
nions which  we  may  hold  with  a  most  entire  conviction  of 
their  truth,  an  absolute  and  imperious  self-confidence,  and 
a  judicial  assurance  that  the  contradictory  tenets  are  errors. 
There  is  a  poetry,  for  instance,  of  which  a  man  may  both 
know  and  feel  not  only  that  it  gives  poetic  gratification 
to  himself,  but  that  it  cannot  fail  to  produce  a  like  effect 
on  every  well-constituted  and  well-educated  mind.  When 
an  English  critic,  Rymer,  some  hundred  and  fifty  years 
ago,  disloyal  in  his  folly,  pronounced  the  tragical  part  of 
Othello  to  be  plainly  none  other  than  a  bloody  farce,  with- 
out salt  or  savor, — when  Voltaire  scoffed  at  the  tragedy  of 
Hamlet  as  a  gross  and  barbarous  piece,  which  would  not 
be  tolerated  by  the  vilest  rabble  of  France  or  Italy,  liken- 
ing it  (I  give  you  his  own  words)  to  the  fruit  of  the 
imagination  of  a  drunken  savage, —  when  Steevens,  an 
editor  of  Shakspeare,  said  that  an  act  of  Parliament  would 
not  be  strong  enough  to  compel  the  perusal  of  the  sonnets 
and  other  minor  poems  of  the  bard, — when  Dr.  Johnson 
remarked  that  Paradise  Lost  might  be  read  as  a  duty,  but 
could  not  be  as  a  pleasure,  and  pronounced  a  sweeping 
condemnation  on  Milton's  incomparable  Lycidas, — when, 
in  our  own  day,  a  Scotch  critic,  Lord  Jeffrey,  declared  of 
Wordsworth's  majestic  poem,  The  Excursion,  that  "it 
would  never  do," — in  each  of  these  opinions  I  know,  as 
anybody  may,  with  a  confidence  not  short  of  demonstra- 
tion, I  know  that  there  was  gross  and  grievous  falsehood. 
Now,  if  these  opinions  are  defenceless  on  the  score  of 
variety  of  mind,  and  safely  to  be  stigmatized  as  rash  and 


QUALIFICATIONS    OF    A    CRITIC.  23 


irrational  judgments,  it  follows  that  there  must  exist  prin- 
eiples  to  guide  to  wise  conclusions.  And  how  is  a  theory 
of  criticism  to  be  formed?  How,  in  a  matter  in  which 
men  are  apt  to  think  and  feel  so  differently,  to  have  such 
various  fancies,  prejudices,  and  prepossessions, — how  are 
we  to  get  at  the  truth?  The  process  of  criticism  is  a 
process  of  induction;  and,  happily,  we  have  the  pages  of 
Spenser  and  Shakspeare  and  Milton  to  gather  instruction 
from; — happily,  I  say,  for  no  one  is  so  bold  or  so  stupid  in 
paradox  as  to  question  the  sufficiency  of  such  authorities. 
But  induction  is  something  more  than  the  gathering  of 
examples,  more  than  what  is  often  thought  to  be  all-suf- 
ficient,— mere  observation  and  experiment.  The  pages 
of  the  mighty  poets  cannot  of  themselves  bestow  the 
power  to  recognise  and  to  feel  what  they  contain.  All 
their  utterance  may  be  unheeded;  and  it  is  only  when 
the  human  spirit  has  studied  its  own  nature  that  the 
sounds  which  before  passed  over  it  as  idly  and  as  noise- 
lessly as  a  floating  cloud  make  the  spiritual  music  which 
is  poetry.  It  is  not  enough  to  know  the  voice  and  the 
tones  of  poetry,  but  to  discover  the  avenues  of  the  human 
heart  which  lie  -Open  to  them,  and  which  send  back  the 
music  echoed  from  its  depths.  These  are  the  sources  of 
that  wisdom  which  enables  us  to  distinguish  the  truth 
of  poetic  inspiration  from  that  which  is  counterfeit  and 
delusive.  I  know  not  where  else  to  search  for  the 
elements  of  criticism  than  in  the  minstrelsy  of  the  mighty 
dead,  and  the  life  which  is  the  pulse  of  every  living  heart. 
It  would  not  be  inappropriate  for  me  here  to  examine 
what  is  the  union  of  qualifications  essential  to  the  cha- 
racter of  an  enlightened  critic  of  poetry.  There  is  needed 
a  mind  at  once  poetical  and  philosophical,  with  powers 


24  LECTURE    FIRST. 


imaginative  and  analytical,  and  not  merely  the  passive 
recipiency  of  a  correct  taste,  but  the  quick  sympathy  of 
an  active  imagination,  untrammelled  by  conventional  or 
technical  precepts;  a  natural  sensibility;  force  and  kindly 
affections;  a  vigorous  and  well-disciplined  understanding; 
and  a  judicial  composure  dwelling  above  the  clouded  and 
fitful  region  of  prejudice.  Let  me  assure  you  that  when 
I  look  forth  to  the  magnificent  theme  which  is  before 
me, — the  vast  compass  of  English  poetry  and  its  lofty 
soarings, —  no  one  is  more  painfully  impressed  than  he 
who  is  addressing  you  with  the  thought  of  how  much  is 
demanded  for  the  faithful  execution  of  that  which  he  has 
undertaken. 

I  have  already  intimated  an  opinion  that  the  noblest 
portion  of  a  nation's  literature  is  its  poetry.  I  am  well 
aware  that  this  is  a  sentiment  in  which  many  minds  will 
be  reluctant  to  concur,  and  that  not  a  few  will  utterly 
revolt  at  it.  We  live  in  an  age  whose  favourite  question 
is,  What  is  the  use?  The  inquiry  is  a  rational  one;  and 
equally  rational  is  the  conclusion, —  that  what  is  useless 
is  contemptible.  But  the  notion  of  utility  is  very  various, 
and  we  must  be  cautious  that  we  are  not  condemning  by 
a  false  standard.  In  the  common  business  transactions 
of  the  world,  men  are  very  careful  as  to  the  weights  and 
measures  they  are  dealing  with.  The  buyer  of  a  yard 
of  cloth,  or  a  chest  of  tea,  or  a  prescription  of  medicine, 
trusts  to  an  accurate  measurement  as  the  means  of  giving 
him  all  that  he  is  entitled  to,  and,  in  the  last  case,  saving 
him  from  being  drugged  with  more  than  his  malady 
makes  inevitable.  Now,  when  you  turn  from  the  world 
of  trade  to  the  inner  world  of  moral  and  intellectual 
operations,  you  will  see  men  weighing  and  measuring 


UTILITARIAN    CRITICISM.  -J5 


out  their  judgments  and  their  sentiments  with  all  the 
confidence  of  logical  deduction  from  their  premises,  not 
dreaming  that  often  in  those  premises  lies  the  fallacy  of  a 
false  balance  and  a  crooked  rule.  The  mind,  instead  of 
being  truly  poised,  is  often  perversely  planted ;  and  it  has 
its  makeweights  in  the  shape  of  covert  prejudices  or 
prepossessions,  and  thence  come  distorted  judgments  and 
misdirected  affections.  Eminently  is  this  the  case  in  our 
estimate  of  utility,  for  the  obvious  reason  that,  men  pro- 
posing to  themselves  different  objects  to  be  attained,  a 
pursuit  is  applauded  as  useful,  or  despised  as  the  reverse, 
just  as  it  may  happen  to  conduce  to  those  ends  respect- 
ively. Thus,  things  are  judged  by  standards  never  meant 
for  them, — a  process  as  senseless  as  if  one  sought  to 
measure  by  a  balance  or  to  weigh  by  a  foot-rule.  The  aim 
of  one  man  may  be  wealth ;  of  another,  power,  political  or 
military;  of  another,  notoriety  or  fame ;  of  another,  ease, 
eating  and  drinking  and  sleeping;  of  another,  knowledge 
or  literary  cultivation;  of  another,  the  social  amelioration 
of  mankind;  or,  of  another,  the  enlargement  of  his  whole 
being  by  the  improvement  of  every  talent  which  God  has 
given  him,  and  the  further-looking  hope  of  the  promised 
happiness  of  an  hereafter.  Each  one,  by  a  process  of 
reasoning,  equal,  too,  in  logical  accuracy,  reaches  a  con- 
clusion of  his  own.  And  thus  the  art  of  bookkeeping  and 
the  tables  of  interest  are  useful;  and  so  is  the  art  of 
cookery;  and  so  is  history,  or  politics,  or  the  art  of  war;  and 
so  is  poetry;  and  so  is  the  Bible ; — all  useful,  each  in  its  own 
— I  need  not  add  how  different — way.  But  the  moment 
you  begin  to  apply  to  any  one  the  standard  proper  to 
another,  then  comes  error,  with  confusibn  on  confusion. 
Especially  is  this  the  case  with  regard  to  literature,  and, 


LECTURE    FIRST. 


most  of  all,  to  the  higher  department  of  imaginative 
composition.  The  question  to  be  discussed  in  its  most 
striking  form  comes  directly  to  this : — AVhat  is  the  use  of 
poetry?  Now,  when  a  question  of  this  sort  is  made,  the 
answer  must  depend  very  much  on  the  temper  and  the 
tone  in  which  it  is  propounded.  If  it  come  with  a  self- 
sufficient  defiance  of  reply,  with  that  scornful  materialism 
which  recognises  no  standard  of  value  but  what  affects 
the  outward  man, —  if  it  come  from  that  quenchless  spirit 
of  traffic  whose  element  is  the  market,  and  which  con- 
centrates the  intensity  of  man's  being — to  describe  it  in  a 
familiar  way — within  that  busy  but  small  portion  of  the 
day  comprehended  between  the  hours  of  nine  and  three, 
making  life  a  kind  of  bank-hour  existence, —  then,  I  say, 
the  question  may,  like  Pilate's,  better  remain  unan- 
swered; for  the  very  faculties  to  be  addressed  are  tor- 
pid or  dead,  no  more  able  to  take  cognizance  of  the 
loftier  aims  of  literature  than  the  deaf  to  delight  in  music 
or  the  blind  in  colours.  There  is  a  wide  gulf  separating 
the  cold,  dark,  and  indurated  heart  of  the  sensual  and 
the  mercenary  from  the  imaginative  and  the  spiritual; 
and  it  is  a  vain  and  almost  hopeless  thing  to  try  to  send 
the  voice  across  it.  If  ever  the  blindness  of  the  clouded 
heart,  purged  away  in  any  chance  moment,  catches  a 
glimpse  of  the  glory  enveloping  the  mighty  poets,  it  sees 
them  only  "  as  trees  walking." 

But  the  inquiry  as  to  the  use  of  poetry  may  come  in  a 
better  shape, —  the  meek  questioning  of  a  docile  doubt. 
It  may  be  the  craving  of  a  heart  yet  pure  from  the  pride 
of  materialism  in  all  its  forms,  and  of  a  young  imagina- 
tion feeble  in  its  apprehensions  of  imaginative  truth;  and 
then  no  pains  should  be  spared  to  convince  that  poetry 


TRUE    USE    OF    POETRY.  27 


has,  in  the  highest  and  truest  sense,  its  use.  Criticism 
has  no  more  precious  office  than  to  give  its  aid  "that  men 
may  learn  more  worthily  to  understand  and  appreciate 
what  a  glorious  gift  God  bestows  on  a  nation  when  he 
gives  them  a  poet."  A  sense  of  the  dignity  of  the  sub- 
ject we  are  approaching  makes  me  solicitous  to  contribute 
something  to  the  formation  of  correct  opinion.  It  is 
necessary  to  go  to  the  root  of  what  is  erroneous,  and  to 
lay  the  foundation  broadly  and  deeply  for  sound  princi- 
ples. Let  us,  in  the  first  place,  observe  what  is  the  mode 
of  thinking  prevalent  in  the  estimate  of  poetical  com- 
position. I  do  not  mean  opinions  expressed  in  the  shape 
of  deliberately-framed  propositions,  but  a  state  of  opinion 
which,  while  rarely  venturing  on  such  expressions,  will 
yet  betray  itself  in  numberless  indirect  forms  equally 
significant.  If  any  one  will  be  at  the  trouble  of  observ- 
ing those,  he  can  scarce  fail  to  perceive  signs  of  a  low  ap- 
preciation of  the  imaginative  department  of  literature, 
whether  considered  in  comparison  or  positively.  It  is 
betrayed  either  by  absolute  neglect  or  by  what  is  far 
more  injurious,  because  more  plausible  and  offensive, — 
the  habit  of  alluding  to 'poetry  as  a  mere  matter  of  senti- 
mental recreation,  or,  at  best,  a  species  of  elegant  trifling, 
congenial  to  effeminacy  or  immaturity  of  mind  rather 
than  to  the  robust  and  manly  energy  of  a  ripened  intellect. 
I  have  little  doubt  that,  in  many  minds,  the  first  associa- 
tion called  up  by  the  word  "poetry"  is  the  effusion  of 
that  generous  vanity  which  gratifies  itself  in  a  small  way 
on  the  pages  of  albums  and  scrap-books,  and  sometimes 
by  a  more  adventurous  flight,  as  high  as  the  corner  of  a 
newspaper.  Observe,  too,  how  the  title  of  poet  is  con- 
ferred— in  apparent  unconsciousness  of  any  absurdity  in 


28  LECTURE    FIP.ST. 


such  use  of  language — on  any  stripling,  male  or  female, 
who  accomplishes  the  feat  of  stringing  together  a  few 
sentimental  rhymes;  and  what  is  more  sickening  to  see 
is  the  self-complacency  with  which  the  title  is  received 
and  worn.  But  the  false  opinions  of  poetry  stop  not  at  a 
low  estimate,  for  it  is  often  seen  to  put  on  the  form  of 
contemptuous  repugnance.  It  is  shunned  as  fostering  a 
dangerous,  dreamy,  visionary  habit  of  mind,  incompatible 
with  the  demands  of  active  life.  Now,  against  the  folly 
involved  in  this  egregious  misappreciation  of  the  worth 
of  genuine  poetry  it  is  hard  to  argue,  for  it  seldom  occurs 
in  the  tangible  form  of  distinct  avowals.  But  that  it 
exists,  and  is  influencing  the  direction  of  mental  pursuits 
and  affecting  the  habitual  tone  of  thought  and  feeling, 
cannot  be  doubted  by  any  one  who  will  observe  the 
neglect  of  poetical  literature,  or  the  supercilious  spirit 
with  which  a  poet's  endowments  are  regarded  in  coin- 
parison  with  qualifications  for  other  departments  of 
intellectual  occupation. 

For  this  there  must  be  some  cause; — something,  too, 
which  sustains  so  wide-spread  an  error.  Half  the  refuta- 
tion of  fallacy  will  often  be  th'e  mere  discovery  of  its 
origin.  There  is  confusion  of  mind  on  one  point,  which 
greatly  contributes  to  the  mistaken  opinions  under  dis- 
cussion. I  allude  to  the  very  common  and  superficial 
error  of  identifying  poetry  with  verse.  That  verse — the 
melody  of  metre  and  rhyme — is  the  appropriate  diction 
of  true  poetry,  its  outward  garb,  (for  a  reason  I  shall 
hereafter  advert  to,)  is  perfectly  true;  but  then  it  is  nothing 
more  than  the  outward  form ;  it  is  the  dress  and  not  the 
body  or  the  soul  of  poetry.  Very  far  am  I  from  enter- 
taining those  principles  of  criticism  which  recognise  as 


JOXSOX'S    PANEGYRIC    OX    POETRY.  23 


poetry  imaginative  composition  divested  of  metrical  ex- 
pression, which  I  deem  its  natural  and  essential  form. 
But  then  there  may  be  the  form  without  the  appropriate 
substance.  The  idea  of  poetry  comprehends  verse :  but 
there  may  be  verse  without  a  ray  of  poetry;  and  to  sup- 
pose that  dexterity  in  versifying  implies  the  endowment 
of  a  poet's  powers  is  much  the  same  confusion  of  thought 
as  to  think  that  a  military  cloak  makes  a  soldier,  or  an 
ecclesiastical  vestment  makes  a  priest.  Thought,  whether 
uttered  in  prose  or  verse,  may  undergo  no  change  with 
the  change  of  the  outward  fashion.  When  verse  is  mis- 
taken for  poetry,  discredit  is  brought  on  the  latter 
because  it  is  well  known  that  the  making  of  verses  look- 
ing indeed  very  like  poetry  is  within  the  power  of  the 
shallowest  intellect.  It  may  be  the  merest  mechanism 
conceivable.  There  is  a  multitude  of  verses  with  no  more 
of  the  life-blood  of  poetry  than  there  is  life  in  the  tattered 
garments  dangling  and  fluttering  on  a  stick  to  frighten 
the  fowls  of  the  air  from  a  growing  crop.  To  place  the 
mere  versifier  in  the  same  category  with  the  genuine  poet 
is  the  gross  fallacy  of  giving  to  the  butterfly,  the  bat,  and 
the  winged  insect  brotherhood  with  the  dove  and  the 
eagle.  It  is  a  false  affinity,  from  which  true  imagination 
has  always  revolted.  The  classical  student  will,  on  a 
moment's  reflection,  recall  the  feelings  in  this  particular 
of  more  than  one  of  the  Roman  satirists;  but  I  know  no 
passage  of  the  kind  finer  than  one  in  which  that  vigorous 
dramatist,  Ben  Jonson,  at  once  spurns  his  false  brethren 
and  vindicates  his  own  high  calling  in  a  strain  that  rises 
on  the  blast  of  a  magnanimous  indignation  : — 

"I  can  approve 
The  state  of  Poesy,  such  as  it  is. 


30  LECTURE    FIRST. 


Blessed,  eternal,  and  most  true  divine. 

Indeed,  if  you  will  look  on  Poesy 

As  she  appears  in  many,  poor  and  lame, 

Patched  up  in  remnants  and  old  worn-out  rags, 

Half  starved  for  want  of  her  peculiar  food, 

Sacred  invention,  then  I  must  confirm 

Both  your  conceit  and  censure  of  her  merit : — 

But  view  her  in  her  glorious  ornaments, 

Attired  in  the  majesty  of  Art, 

Set  high  in  spirit  with  the  precious  taste 

Of  sweet  Philosophy ;  and,  which  is  most, 

Crowned  with  the  rich  traditions  of  a  soul 

That  hates  to  have  her  dignity  profaned 

With  any  relish  of  an  earthly  thought : 

Oh,  then  how  proud  a  presence  doth  she  bear ! 

Then  she  is  like  herself, — fit  to  be  seen 

Of  none  but  grave  and  consecrated  eyes. 

Nor  is  it  any  blemish  to  her  fame 

That  such  lean,  ignorant,  and  blasted  wits, 

Such  brainless  gulls,  should  utter  their  stolen  wares 

With  such  applauses  in  our  vulgar  cars  : 

Or  that  their  slubbered  lines  have  current  pass 

From  the  fat  judgments  of  the  multitude, 

But  that  this  barren  and  infected  ago 

Should  set  no  difference  'twixt  these  empty  spirits 

And  a  true  poet,  than  which  reverend  name 

Nothing  can  more  adorn  humanity." 

The  reproach  of  the  debasement  of  poetic  inspiration 
to  unworthy  or  corrupt  uses  is  thus  repelled  by  a  later 
poet  when  he  proclaims  that 

"  Deathless  powers  to  verse  belong ; 
And  they  like  demigods  are  strong 

On  whom  the  Muses  smile; 
But  some  their  function  have  disclaimed, 
Best  pleased  with  what  is  nptliest  framed 

To  enervate  and  defile. 


OI5JKCT    OF    THIS    COURSK    OF    LKCTUIIKS.  31 


"Xor  such  the  spirit-stirring  note 
\Vhen  the  live  chords  Alcaeus  smote 

Inflamed  by  sense  of  wrong. 
'  Woe  !  woe  to  tyrants  !'  from  the  lyre 
Broke  threateningly,  in  sparkles  dire 
Of  fierce,  vindictive  song. 

And  not  unhallowed  was  the  page, 
By  wing6d  love  inscribed  to  assuage 

The  pangs  of  vain  pursuit ; 
Love  listening  while  the  Lesbian  maid 
AVith  finest  touch  of  passion  swayed 

Her  own  JEolian  lute."* 

Let  me  here  remark  that  the  purpose  of  this  course  is 
not  to  encourage  poetical  composition.  I  have  no  such 
thought;  but  I  am  not  without  a  hope  that  it  may  so  far 
contribute  to  the  appreciation  of  the  poetic  function  as  to 
prevent  the  puny  ambition  of  weaving  verses  under  the 
delusion  that  the  production  is  poetry.  It  is  a  weak 
waste  of  time,  requiring  very  little  intellect,  no  feeling, 
and  no  imagination,  and  yet  very  apt  to  foster  a  habit  of 
self-beguiling  vanity.  This  course  on  the  English  Poets 
is  to  persuade  not  to  the  writing,  but  to  the  reading,  of 
poetry.  Where  the  rare  inspiration  does  exist,  it  is  a  fire 
self-sustaining  in  the  spirit  to  which  it  is  given,  and  the 
stranger's  hand  can  neither  fan  nor  quench  it.  It  has  been 
finely  remarked  that  there  can  be  poetry  in  the  writings 
of  few  men,  but  it  ought  to  be  in  the  hearts  and  lives  of  all. 

This  cause  just  noticed  is  not  adequate  fully  to  explain 
the  phenomena  of  opinions  under  discussion.  There 
must  be  some  deeper  and  more  abiding  motive  for  the 
tendency  to  disparage  the  productions  of  imagination. 

*  Wordsworth's  "September." 


22  LECTUKE    FIRST. 


The  defence  of  poetry  is  no  new  topic.  '  In  entering  on 
the  illustration  of  this  department  of  English  Literature, 
I  feel  as  if  I  could  scarce  venture  to  advance  without 
vindicating  the  worth  and  dignity  of  the  subject;  and 
when  I  reflect  that,  very  nearly  three  hundred  years  ago, 
there  was  given  to  the  world  a  celebrated  treatise  on  this 
very  subject,  it  is  impossible  to  avoid  the  conclusion  that 
there  must  be  some  cause,  deep  seated  in  the  nature  of 
mankind  and  stronger  than  any  temporary  or  local  in- 
fluence, which  engenders  mistaken  notions  respecting  this 
department  of  imaginative  literature.  I  cannot  omit 
commending  to  the  student  of  English  literature  the 
treatise  alluded  to, — "  The  Defence  of  Poetry,  by  Sir  Philip 
Sydney/' — as  well  for  its  intrinsic  merit,  and  as  the  pro- 
duction of  the  earliest  good  prose-writer  in  the  language, 
as  for  the  distinguished  interest  attaching  to  the  personal 
character  and  history  of  the  author, — the  matchless  model 
of  a  modern  knight, — a  soldier,  a  statesman,  and  a  scholar, 
over  whose  early  death  on  the  field  of  battle  a  whole 
kingdom  mourned,  and  of  whom  a  literary  antiquary  has 
asserted  that  two  hundred  authors  could  be  counted  who 
have  spoken  his  praises.  "I  have,"  are  Sydney's  words, 
"just  cause  to  make  a  pitiful  defence  of  poor  Poetry, 
which,  from  almost  the  highest  estimation  of  learning, 
has  fallen  to  be  the  laughing-stock  of  children."  He 
figuratively  addressed  his  contemporaries  "as  born  so 
near  the  dull-making  cataract  of  Nilus  that  they  could 
not  hear  the  planet-like  music  of  Poetry;  as  having  so 
earth-creeping  minds  that  they  could  not  lift  themselves 
to  the  sky  of  Poetry."  Some  verses  written  by  an  ob- 
scure poet  shortly  after  the  "  Defence"  thus  acknow- 
ledged the  benefit  it  conferred  : — 


MATERIALISM    AND    INFIDELITY.  33 


"  Good  poets  were  in  high  esteem 
When  learning  grew  in  price 
Their  virtue  and  their  verse  did  seem 
A  great  rebuke  to  vice. 

"  With  blunt,  base  people  of  small  sense 

They  fall  now  in  disdain  ; 
But  Sydney's  book  in  their  defence 
Did  raise  them  up  again; 

"And  sets  them  next  divines  in  rank, 

As  members  meet  and  fit 
To  strike  the  world's  blind  boldness  blank 
And  whet  the  bluntest  wit" 

But,  after  all,  poetry  must  be  its  own  vindication;  and 
it  is  an  interesting  fact  that,  at  the  very  time  Sydney  was 
composing  his  defence,  Spenser  and  Shakspeare  were  re- 
volving the  elements  of  their  great  imaginings.  The 
dulness  Sydney  complained  of  was  the  dark  hour  before 
the  coming  dawn.  His  plea  touched  the  slumbering 
spirit  of  his  nation,  like  the  breath  of  morning,  waking 
them  to  a  day  more  glorious  than  ever  shone  on  the 
human  intellect. 

I  have  alluded,  to  Sir  Philip  Sydney's  work,  not  only 
because  its  rank  in  English  literature  entitles  it  to  passing 
notice,  but  because  it  shows  a  depreciation  of  the  poetic 
art  in  various  ages.  I  doubt  not  it  is  a  prejudice  as  an- 
cient as  poetry  itself,  and  that  it  will  last  while  the  world 
lasts,  modified,  indeed,  as  I  shall  endeavour  presently  to 
show,  by  the  distinctive  spirit  of  the  times.  The  con- 
stitutional infirmity  of  man  is  his  proneness  to  material- 
ism. I  use  the  word  in  its  largest  sense,  to  express  the 
tendency  to  limit  our  aims  and  desires  to  results  which 
are  called  practical  because  they  are  palpable  and  mea- 


34  LECTURE     FIRST. 


surable;  the  overvaluing  the  world  of  sense  and  the  con- 
sequent undervaluing  the  world  of  spirit;  the  forgetful- 
ness  of  the  nobler  part  of  our  complex  nature, — the  inner 
life,  because  the  calls  for  outward  life  are  louder  and  un- 
ceasing. It  brings,  too,  the  inability  to  rise  under  the 
pressure  of  that  narrow  period  enveloping  each  passing 
point  of  time  which  we  call  the  present;  and  thus,  just  in 
proportion  as  the  heart  becomes  materialized,  does  it  go 
stumbling  on  in  its  blindness,  borrowing  no  ray  from  past 
or  future,  each  step  with  no  more  than  its  own  light,  and 
that  not  from  the  spiritual  within,  but  the  dim  glimmering 
of  the  senses.  One  generation  may  be  more  imbruted  in 
its  sensuality  than  another, — one  race  more  than  another; 
as  the  same  clime  where  breathed  the  Athenian  fed  the 
Spartan  and  the  Boeotian.  But  the  common  curse  upon 
humanity  is  that  it  is  of  the  earth,  earthy.  Whatever 
conflicts  with  this  corruption  is  doomed  to  encounter  neg- 
lect and  obloquy.  The  functions  of  all  true  poetry  are 
spiritual.  Whatever  form  the  prejudice  may  assume, — 
whether  ignorant  or  contemptuous  neglect  or  direct  re- 
probation,— the  solution  of  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  con- 
trariety between  the  works  of  pure  imagination  and  a 
corrupt  tendency  of  human  nature;  that  which  is  mate- 
rial perpetually  striving  for  ascendency  over  that  which 
is  spiritual.  In  the  palmy  days  of  Grecian  mythology 
there  were,  I  doubt  not,  those  who  deemed  the  acorns 
that  fell  from  the  mysterious  oaks  at  Dodona  more  pre- 
cious than  the  inspirations  uttered  from  those  sacred 
groves. 

This  influence,  common  to  all  ages  of  the  world  be- 
cause constitutional  to  humanity,  may  be  aggravated  by 
other  agencies  in  different  ages  of  civilization.  Our  own 


SPIRIT   OF    OUR    TIMES.  35 


has  its  marked  characteristics, — its  good  and  its  evil  ten- 
dencies. I  should  very  inadequately  discuss  the  subject 
under  consideration  were  I  to  omit  to  inquire  in  what 
the  spirit  of  our  times  affects  the  appreciation  of  the 
works  of  imagination ;  whether  the  faculty  embodies  the 
creations  on  the  canvas,  or  in  marble,  or  in  the  noblest 
mould  of  inventive  genius, — in  language.  The  principles 
of  this  discussion  have,  it  may  be  readily  seen,  an  applica- 
tion to  the  province  of  the  painter  and  the  sculptor  as 
well  as  to  the  most  intellectual  of  the  Fine  Arts,  which 
forms  our  subject.  The  age  we  live  in  claims  to  be  in 
an  uncommon  degree  enlightened.  And  what  are  the 
grounds  of  its  pride  ?  During  the  past  thirty  or  forty 
years,  advances  have  been  made  in  the  physical  sciences 
transcending,  as  far  as  we  have  the  means  of  comparison, 
any  thing  achieved  in  the  same  department  in  any  former 
period  of  the  world.  The  results  of  this  development 
are  manifest  in  all  the  avenues  of  civilization;  and  so 
multitudinous  are  the  combinations  of  material  agencies, 
such  the  intellectual  mastery  over  the  blind  elements,  that 
no  limit  seems  to  be  set  in  this  respect  to  human  expec- 
tation. The  mind  has  scarce  time  to  recover  from  its 
admiration  of  some  invention  or  achievement  by  powers 
disclosed  by  mechanical  science,  before  it  is  called  away 
to  some  new  exploit.  It  is  but  lately,  for  instance,  that 
the  continents  of  Europe  and  America  have  suddenly 
been,  to  all  practical  purposes,  brought  twice  as  near  to 
each  other  as  they  ever  were  before.  Again,  within  a 
year  or  so,  we  were  told  that  a  French  chemist  had  gained 
the  power  of  giving  permanency  to  the  fleeting  reflections 
of  a  mirror :  that  was  listened  to  with  astonishment,  and 
something  of  incredulity,  which  have  now  passed  wholly 


36  LECTURE    FIRST. 


away.  And  thus  we  seem  to  be  living  amid  a  succession 
of  nine-days'  wonders.  To  regard  this  state  of  things 
with  regret  or  complaint  would  obviously  be  in  a  high 
degree  irrational  as  well  as  unmanly.  On  the  contrary, 
the  prodigious  progress  of  physical  science  and  the  attend- 
ant arts  is  a  fit  subject  of  congratulation,  bringing,  as  it 
does,  manifold  amelioration  in  all  that  concerns  our 
physical  existence.  Besides,  I  could  not  bring  myself  to 
indulge  for  one  moment  a  sentiment  of  jealousy  or  dis- 
paragement of  physical  science ;  for  often  have  I  witnessed 
with  admiration  the  single-hearted  devotion  of  the  man 
of  science  to  the  vast  department  of  his  investigations, — 
single-hearted  in  his  seeking  after  truth,  and  indignant  at 
the  utilitarian  question  which  would  limit  the  range  of 
inquiry  to  obvious  and  immediate  results.  The  genius 
of  true  poetry  is  not  daunted  by  the  speed  of  science. 
But  there  is  an  inquiry  of  grave  import,  which,  in  our  ex- 
ultation, we  are  apt  to  overlook.  The  peril  incident  to 
fallen  humanity  is  forgotten, — that  blessings  come  not  un- 
alloyed, and  that,  abused,  they  may  be  perverted  into 
evils.  It  is  fit,  therefore,  to  ask  whether  the  improve- 
ments upon  which  our  age  prides'  itself  are  so  absolutely 
unqualified  as  to  justify  the  rather-contemptuous  com- 
passion for  the  unilluminated  condition  of  our  fore- 
fathers. Is  it  all  profit  and  no  loss  ?  Are  we  quite  safe 
in  reposing  upon  our  gains  with  a  confidence  that  no- 
thing of  our  treasures  has  imperceptibly  been  allowed  to 
pass  away?  In  noticing  what  I  believe  to  be  some  of 
the  characteristic  errors  and  frailties  of  our  times,  I 
am  anxious  to  speak  with  modesty;  and  therefore  I 
quote  the  language  of  an  author  by  whom  it  has  been 
well  remarked  that,  "in  regard  to  the  supposed  superiority 


INFLUENCE    OF    MATERIALISM    ON    POETRY.  37 


of  the  present  age,  the  mistake  arises  in  various  ways. 
A  part  of  knowledge,  perhaps  the  least  important,  is  put 
for  the  whole;  no  balance  is  struck  between  what  is 
gained  in  one  department  and  what  is  lost  in  another; 
the  worthiness  of  the  ends  pursued  is  not  considered  in 
determining  the  value  of  the  means;  the  economy  of 
wealth  is  taken  as  the  measure  of  national  welfare;  legis- 
lation passes  for  jurisprudence.  So,  again,  the  study  of 
nature  may  have  flourished,  the  study  of  mind  may  have 
drooped ;  the  arts  of  life  may  have  advanced,  domestic 
wisdom  may  have  lost  ground;  education  may  have  been 
diffused,  learning  may  have  declined.  All  our  gains  are 
counted ;  but  our  losses  are  not  set  against  them.  And, 
again,  personal  comfort,  convenience,  or  luxury,  mental 
or  bodily,  is  openly  proposed,  not  only  as  the  best,  but  as 
the  only,  object  of  intellectual  pursuit ;  whereas,  formerly, 
the  search  of  truth  was  supposed  to  bring  its  own  recom- 
pense. Thus,  a  lower  end  is  substituted  for  a  higher;  and 
by  overstating  the  claims  of  our  fellow-creatures,  once  too 
much  neglected  in  these  studies,  we  forget  the  more  sub- 
lime relation  between  the  human  spirit  and  the  God  who 
gave  it." 

These  traits  in  the  spirit  of  our  times  are  characterized 
by  another  writer,  in  an  eloquent  and  philosophical  pas- 
sage bearing  more  immediately  on  the  subject  I  am  dis- 
cussing. "Men  have  been  pressing  forward  for  some 
time  in  a  path  which  has  betrayed  by  its  fruitfulness, 
furnishing  them  constant  employment  for  picking  up 
things  about  their  feet  when  thoughts  were  perishing  in 
their  minds.  While  mechanic  arts,  manufactures,  agri- 
culture, commerce,  and  all  those  products  of  knowledge 
which  are  confined  to  gross,  definite,  and  tangible  objects, 


LECTURE    FIRST. 


have,  with  the  aid  of  experimental  philosophy,  been  every 
day  putting  on  more  brilliant  colours,  the  splendour  of 
imagination  has  been  fading.  Sensibility,  which  was 
formerly  a  generous  nursling  of  rude  nature,  has  been 
chased  from  its  ancient  range  in  the  wide  domain  of 
patriotism  and  religion,  with  the  weapons  of  derision,  by 
a  shadow  calling  itself  Good  Sense;  calculations  of  pre- 
sumptuous expediency,  groping  its  way  among  partial  and 
temporary  consequences,  have  been  substituted  for  the 
dictates  of  paramount  and  infallible  conscience,  the  su- 
preme embracer  of  consequences;  lifeless  and  circumspect 
decencies  have  banished  the  graceful  negligence  and 
unsuspicious  dignity  of  virtue."  It  is  scarcely  necessary 
to  remark  that  an  age  thus  characterized  must  be  in  a 
great  degree  unimaginative  and  its  tendencies  adverse  to 
poetic  culture.  Look  round  upon  society,  and  you  behold 
on  every  side  symptoms  of  restless  curiosity,  and  the  love 
of  outward  excitement  stimulated  to  so  high  a  pitch  that 
the  strenuous  exercises  of  imagination  and  all  spiritual 
thought  are  neglected  as  uncongenial  or  despised  as 
visionary.  We  live  in  turmoil;  and  the  man  who  dares 
to  pause  but  for  brief  meditation  is  in  danger  of  being 
trodden  down  by  the  throng  that  is  pressing  forward. 
Philosophy  must  deal  with  handicrafts,  with  steam,  with 
the  crucible,  with  magnetism,  with  storms,  with  manufac- 
tures, with  exports  and  imports  and  the  currency;  but. 
if  it  seek  its  ancient  track, — the  human  spirit  and  all  the 
immaterial  life  that  it  sustains, — the  world.turns  away  from 
it  as  from  useless  scholastic  speculation.  It  may  be  tole- 
rated as  a  piece  of  monastic  harmlessness,  but  no  more,  in 
the  necessities  of  over-active  existence.  In  a  state  of 
opinion  where  such  principles  are  dominant,  poetry  of  a 


UNDUE     CULTURE    OF    SPECIAL    FACULTIES. 


high  order  will  in  vain  claim  from  the  many  the  affection- 
ate homage  which  its  votaries  render.  In  the  strife 
between  the  antagonist  elements  of  our  complex  being 
the  mastery  is  too  often  won  by  the  sensual  over  the 
spiritual ;  and  hence  it  is  that  man  is  said  to  live  by  sight 
rather  than  by  faith, —  a  life  adverse  alike  to  all  that  is 
religious  and  all  that  is  imaginative.  A  great  poet,  stand- 
ing by  the  seaside,  conscious  of  the  influence  of  natural 
objects,  and  conscious,  too,  of  the  apathy  of  a  worldly- 
minded  generation,  boldly  recoils  from  the  materialism 
and  infidelity  of  a  Christian  age  as  more  uncongenial  than 
the  fond  aspirations  even  of  Paganism. 

"The  world  is  too  much  with  us.     Late  and  soon, 

Getting  and  spending,  we  lay  waste  our  powers : 

Little  we  see  in  nature  that  is  ours ; 
We  have  given  our  hearts  away, — a  sordid  hoon ! 
This  sea,  that  bares  her  bosom  to  the  moon, — 

The  winds,  that  will  be  howling  at  all  hours, 

And  are  up-gathered  now  like  sleeping  flowers, — 
For  this,  for  every  thing,  we  are  out  of  tune; 
It  moves  us  not.     Great  God !  I'd  rather  be 

A  Pagan  suckled  in  a  creed  outworn ; 
So  might  I,  standing  on  this  pleasant  lea, 

Have  glimpses  that  would  make  me  less  forlorn 
Have  sight  of  Proteus  rising  from  the  sea, 

Or  hear  old  Triton  blow  his  wreathed  horn." 

There  is  another  influence  adverse  to  imaginative  cul- 
ture. It  is  not  only  that  one  part  of  knowledge,  and  that 
not  affecting  the  highest  and  most  permanent  interests  of 
mankind,  has  usurped  too  large  a  space  in  the  public 
thought,  but  there  has  been  a  tendency  to  unequal  culti- 
vation of  some  of  the  chief  faculties  of  the  mind.  This 
is  not  the  occasion  to  examine  that  modern  mental  philo- 


40  LECTURE    FIRST. 


eopliy  which,  rife  especially  on  the  rank  soil  of  France 
and  in  the  years  of  its  revolution,  was  disseminated  in 
the  latter  part  of  the  last  century.  Enough  for  my  pre- 
sent purpose  is  it  to  say  that  it  gave  to  one  power  of  the 
mind  a  supremacy  which  has  proved  injurious  to  the  just 
distribution  of  all.  The  calculating  faculty  of  the  under- 
standing has  been  made  the  sole  arbiter  to  which  the 
other  reflective  faculties  and  imagination  and  the  moral 
powers  are  to  bow  as  vassals.  This  has  led  to  a  false  con- 
fidence in  a  dangerous  guide ;  for  (never  is  man  more  apt 
to  go  astray  than  when,  casting  away  all  other  light,  he 
follows  implicitly  the  leading  of  mere  reasoning}  Reason, 
(I  use  the  term  in  the  sense  of  the  logical  faculty,)  alien- 
ating itself  in  its  usurpations  from  the  other  powers, 
becomes  wilful,  rash,  and  tyrannous.  Thence  comes  a 
self-confidence  in  the  age  which  casts  off  time-honoured 
associations  with  the  past,  and  thus,  to  borrow  a  fine 
expression,  "covenant  is  broken  with  the  mighty  dead." 
Thence  come  the  thousand  theories  which  unceasingly 
are  flitting  across  the  public  mind : — theories  of  education, 
mental  and  bodily,  theories  of  social  and  political  rege- 
neration, and  theories  of  religion.  Thence  has  come  the 
revolution  we  have  witnessed  in  the  fashion  of  children's 
books;  the  healthy,  imaginative,  old-fashioned  story-books 
displaced  by  preposterous  devices  to  fill  the  young  heart 
with  pedantry.  We  are  cramped  by  false  and  narrow 
systems  of  metaphysics,  teaching  that  wisdom  is  to  be 
drawn  from  one  reservoir,  when,  the  truth  is,  it  is  flowing 
from  a  hundred  springs, — imagination,  the  affections,  faith, 
prayer,  and  whatever  else  helps  to  guide  and  chasten 
intellectual  action.  There  is  a  danger,  it  has  been  well 
said,  "that  the  perfections  and  achievements  of  intellect 


IMAGINATIVE     POWER.  41 


will  be  too  much  prized,  too  much  desired,  too  much 
sought  for.  Already  there  are  many  who  expect  from 
human  knowledge  the  work  of  divine  grace.  Science 
has  made  man  master  of  matter;  it  has  enabled  him  to 
calculate  the  revolutions  of  nature,  to  multiply  his  own 
powers  beyond  all  that  was  dreamed  of  spell  or  talisman : 
and  now  it  is  confidently  prophesied  that  another  science 
is  to  remove  all  the  moral  and  political  evils  of  the  planet; 
that  by  analyzing  the  passions  we  shall  learn  to  govern 
them;  and  that,  when  the  science  of  education  is  grown 
of  age,  virtue  will  be  taught  as  easily  as  arithmetic  and 
comprehended  as  readily  as  geometry  with  the  aid  of 
wooden  diagrams.  Let  us  not  be  deceived.  '  Leviathan 
is  hot  so  tamed.'  The  tree  of  knowledge  is  not  the  tree 
of  life." 

I  am  speaking  of  the  propensity  of  the  age, —  a  pro- 
pensity happily  controlled  by  salutary  checks.  But,  if  any 
one  desire  to  know  what  is  the  utmost  peril  when  such 
restraints  are  removed,  he  may  turn  to  the  spectacle  of 
revolutionary  France,  when,  in  the  highest  paroxysm  of 
rational  regeneration,  there  was  paraded  a  living  repre- 
sentation of  the  goddess  of  Reason,  which  the  philosophers 
bade  the  people  worship ;  and  what  the  idol  was  I  dare 
not  venture  even  to  name  to  you. 

But,  bringing  these  general  observations  to  bear  upon 
our  subject, — when  such  a  condition  of  thought  becomes 
predominant,  in  what  estimation  may  we  expect  to  find 
the  power  of  imagination?  Very  much  what  in  point 
of  fact  may  be  observed  to  exist.  It  will  be  regarded  as 
that  faculty  which  gives  birth  to  novels  and  romances 
and  other  idle  fictions;  which  leads  men  into  wild 
and  extravagant  speculations  and  tempts  some  to  add 


42  LECTURE    FIRST. 


superfluous  ornaments  to  their  statements  of  matters 
of  fact.  What  is  the  nature  and  the  true  functions  of 
genuine  imagination  I  shall  endeavour  to  show  hereafter, 
my  present  purpose  being  only  to  suggest  how  a  particular 
habit  of  opinion  may  bring  disparagement  upon  one  of 
the  chief  endowments  of  the  human  spirit.  Vibrating 
as  the  judgment  is  apt  to  do  from  one  extreme  to  another; 
the  question  may  be  asked,  whether  the  censure  of  undue 
exaltation  of  the  reasoning  faculties  is  meant  to  be  dis- 
suasive from  its  cultivation  or  to  suggest  the  propriety  of 
suspending  them  by  processes  of  the  imagination.  I 
have  intimated  nothing  of  the  kind.  The  error  would 
then  be  great,  though  in  another  direction.  The  dispro- 
portionate exercise  of  our  faculties  is  an  evil,  no  matter 
what  the  disproportion  may  chance  to  be.  When  I  com- 
plain that  one  of  these  faculties  is  neglected  and  often 
sacrificed,  it  would  be  strange  indeed  were  I  to  fall  into 
the  snare  of v  encouraging  a  like  neglect  of  others.  On 
this  point  let  me  sustain  myself  by  what  seems  to  me  the 
wise  authority  of  an  eloquent  writer : — 

"  The  imagination,  if  left  without  restraint  to  follow  its 
own  conceits,  is  vain  and  wild,  and  teems  with  fantastic 
superstitions;  the  understanding,  unless  other  powers  ele- 
vate and  ennoble  it,  is  narrow  and  partial  and  empirical 
and  superficial.  While  the  reason  is  cultivated,  let  not 
the  other  faculties  be  neglected ;  let  it  substantiate  its 
forms  and  give  them  a  body  of  sound  experiential  and 
historical  knowledge ;  and  let  not  this  body  be  without 
the  beautiful,  ever-varying  hues,  the  glowing  flushes  and 
ardent  glances,  of  the  imagination.  So  may  it  become  an 
edifice  wherein  wisdom  may  not  be  ashamed  to  take  up 
her  dwelling.  No  one  of  the  powers  with  which  God 


C  0  -V  C  L  r  ?  I  0  X.  43 


has  endowed  us  is  useless;  no  one  is  meant  to  lie  waste, 
no  one  to  run  waste.  Only  when  they  are  knit  together 
and  working  in  unison  and  harmony  may  we  hope  that 
the  vision  of  truth  will  descend  upon  them." 

I  have  thus  endeavoured  to  trace  to  its  sources  the 
tendency  to  disparage  the  study  of  poetry  as  an  in- 
tellectual occupation.  If  we  can  satisfy  our  minds 
that  such  a  state  of  opinion  has  its  origin  in  the  causes 
suggested, —  the  indiscriminate  confusion  of  all  verse,  no 
matter  how  vapid  and  unimaginative,  with  true  poetry; 
the  perpetual,  because  constitutional,  proneness  to  suffer 
materialism  and  materialized  notions  to  encroach  on  the 
spiritual  endowments  of  humanity;  the  almost  exclusive 
appropriation  of  the  title  of  philosophy  to  mechanical 
science,  looking  only  to  the  world  of  sense ;  and  the  undue 
exaltation  of  the  reasoning  faculty  over  all  other  mental 
powers, —  it  is  enough  to  bring  somewhat  of  conviction 
that  the  opinion  itself  is  error.  But  the  refutation  of 
objections  is  not  enough:  a  subject  must  be  set  on  the 
independent  foundation  of  its  own  principles.  I  have 
felt  that  I  could  not  safely  advance  without  an  attempt  to 
dispose  of  the  preliminary  considerations  which  have 
been  noticed.  This  makes  it  necessary  to  defer  to  the 
next  lecture  the  main  introductory  subject, —  the  nature 
of  Poetry,  with  an  examination  of  its  inspiration,  its 
relation  to  the  Fine  Arts,  and  the  moral  uses  of  a  culti- 
vated imagination, —  and,  after  that,  to  proceed  to  the 
glorious  registry  of  our  English  poets. 

In  conclusion,  one  word  of  a  personal  nature.  This 
course  of  lectures  has  been  prompted  by  the  belief  that 
it  was  due  from  me  to  this  community,  considering  my 
position  in  this  ancient  Philadelphia  institution.  It  is 


44  LECTURE    FIRST. 


the  result  of  mature  reflection,  with  a  full  sense  of  the 
obstacles  and  discouragements  which  it  may  encounter. 
Be  those  discouragements  what  they  may,  standing  on 
the  ground  of  duty,  this  post  of  mine  shall  not  be 
deserted.  I  have  sought  to  place  before  the  public  a 
plan  the  subject  of  which  I  know  to  be  worthy  their 
consideration.  But  how  far  the  lecturer  may  be  esteemed 
competent  to  the  task  he  has  ventured  on,  it  would  be 
indecorous  for  me  to  indulge  the  most  distant  fancy.  It 
will  not,  however,  be  too  much  for  me  to  say  that  I  stand 
here  not  a  suppliant  for  favours,  but  with  the  conscious- 
ness of  a  single  and  an  honourable  purpose  in  the  cause 
of  literature;  and  to  add  that,  while  I  form  no  conjecture 
how  many  of  my  friends  I  may  have  the  pleasure  of  see- 
ing here  again,  no  contingency  of  that  sort  shall  prevent 
the  prosecution  of  this  enterprise  to  its  completion. 


LECTUKE  II. 

The  nature  of  Poetry  and  its  ministrations — Imaginative  capacity — 
Lord  Bacon's  view — Milton's  —  Poetry  a  divine  emanation  —  Its 
foundation  is  truth — The  truth  ef  inner  life — Painting  and  Sculp- 
ture— Poetry  an  imitative  art — The  Child  and  the  Shell — Scientific 
investigation  of  truth — Human  sympathy  cultivated  by  Poetry — 
Immortality — Spiritual  aspirations — Stoicism  irreconcilable  with 
Poetry — Loyalty  and  chivalry — The  songs  of  Israel — Taste,  a  wrong 
name  —  Mental  inactivity  inconsistent  with  criticism  —  Due  pro- 
portion of  intellectual  powers  —  Walter  Scott  and  Sir  Philip 
Sydney. 

HAVING,  in  my  last  lecture,  endeavoured  to  remove 
some  preliminary  obstacles  to  an  entrance  on  our  subject, 
I  wish  now  to  proceed  to  the  consideration  of  the  nature 
of  poetry  and  its  ministrations,  the  poet's  mission  to  his 
fellow-beings,  and  his  powers.  This  is  equivalent  to  an 
examination  of  the -faculty  of  imagination;  for  poetry  is 
the  voice  of  imagination.  The  two  are  inseparable;  and 
it  is  one  and  the  same  thing  to  study  the  nature  of  that 
endowment,  the  moral  uses  of  a  cultivated  imagination, 
and  the  purposes  of  genuine  poetry. 

The  duty  of  cultivation,  let  me  observe  in  the  first 
place,  rests  on  the  possession  of  each  power  of  the  human 
mind.  One  of  the  universal  endowments,  infinitely  dif- 
ferent indeed  in  its  degrees,  is  the  faculty  of  imagination ; 
and  it  would  be  strangely  interpreting  God's  scheme  in 
the  government  of  the  world  to  suppose  that  this  mighty 

45 


46  LECTURE    SECOND. 


power  was  bestowed  for  no  other  than  the  pitiful  offices 
often  deemed  its  distinctive  functions.  It  has  more 
precious  trusts  than  the  production  of  tawdry  romances 
or  sentimental  novels.  The  very  existence  of  imagina- 
tion is  a  proof  that  it  is  an  agency  which  may  be 
improved  to  our  good  or  neglected  and  abused  to  our 
harm.  Even  if  it  were  beyond  our  comprehension  to 
conceive  how  it  may  be  auxiliary  to  humanity,  it  would 
be  no  more  than  a  simple  impulse  of  faith  to  feel  that, 
so  surely  as  it  is  an  element  implanted  in  our  nature,  it  is 
there  to  be  nurtured  and  strengthened  by  thoughtful 
exercise.  But  we  are  not  left  to  the  strenuous  effort 
of  implicit  faith;  for  the  purposes  of  the  endowment  are 
manifest  and  multifarious.  It  has  been  well  demanded, 
"  To  what  end  have  we  been  endowed  with  the  creative 
faculty  of  the  imagination,  which,  glancing  from  heaven 
to  earth,  from  earth  to  heaven,  vivifies  what  to  the  eye 
seems  lifeless  and  actuates  what  to  the  eye  seems  torpid, 
combines  and  harmonizes  what  to  the  eye  seems  broken 
and  disjointed,  and  infuses  a  soul  with  thought  and 
feeling  into  the  multitudinous  fleeting  phantasmagoria 
of  the  senses?  To  what  end  have  we  been  so  richly 
endowed,  unless — as  the  prime  object  and  appointed 
task  of  the  reason  is  to  detect  and  apprehend  the  laws  by 
which  the  almighty  Lawgiver  upholds  and  ordains  the 
world  he  has  created  —  it  be  in  like  manner  the  province 
and  the  duty  of  the  imagination  to  employ  itself  diligently 
in  perusing  and  studying  the  symbolical  characters  where- 
with God  has  engraven  the  revelations  of  his  goodness  on 
the  interminable  scroll  of  the  visible  universe?" 

But   it    is    important    to    cite    the    highest    possible 
authority;  and  I  know  not  where  I  can  better  look  for 


LORD    BACON'S    VIEW    OF    POETRY.  47 


it  than  in  that  almost  superhuman  survey  of  human 
knowledge  contained  in  the  philosophy  of  Lord  Bacon. 
Words  of  wisdom  are  there  which  cast  their  light  on 
almost  all  the  paths  of  mental  inquiry;  and  on  the 
present  occasion  I  seek  them  with  special  earnestness, 
because  of  the  superficial  notion  that  the  Baconian 
philosophy  took  thought  of  the  domains  of  only  physical 
investigation.  It  can,  however,  be  shown  that  among 
the  objects  of  inquiry  to  which  he  pointed  attention  was, 
how  the  imagination  may  be  fortified  and  exalted;  and 
his  brief  but  celebrated  passage  on  Poetry  may  be  aptly 
repeated : — "  The  use  of  this  feigned  history  hath  been  to 
give  some  shadow  of  satisfaction  to  the  mind  of  man  in 
those  points  wherein  the  nature  of  things  doth  deny  it, 
the  world  being,  in  proportion,  inferior  to  the  soul;  by 
reason  whereof  there  is,  agreeable  to  the  spirit  of  man,  a 
more  ample  greatness,  a  more  exact  goodness,  and  a  more 
absolute  variety,  than  can  be  found  in  the  nature  of 
things.  Therefore,  because  the  acts  or  events  of  true 
history  have  not  that  magnitude  which  satisfieth  the 
mind  of  man,  poesy  feigneth  acts  and  events  greater 
and  more  heroical;  because  true  history  propouudeth  the 
successes  and  issues  of  actions  not  so  agreeable  to  the 
merit  of  virtue  and  vice,  therefore  poesy  feigns  them 
more  just  in  retribution  and  more  according  to  revealed 
providence;  because  history  representeth  actions  and 
events  more  ordinary  and  less  interchanged,  therefore 
poesy  endueth  them  with  more  rareness  and  more 
unexpected  variations :  so,  as  it  appearcth,  that  poesy  serv- 
eth  and  conferreth  to  magnanimity  and  delectation;  and, 
therefore,  it  was  ever  thought  to  have  some  participation 
of  divineness,  because  it  doth  raise  and  erect  the  mind 


48  LECTURE    SECOND. 


by  submitting  the  shews  of  things  to  the  desires  of  the 
iniud;  whereas  reason  doth  buckle  and  bow  the  mind 
unto  the  nature  of  things." 

In  these  pregnant  sentences,  worthy  of  deep  reflection, 
may  be  discovered  the  germs  of  the  whole  philosophy  of 
poetry;  and  he  who  will  follow  as  far  as  they  light  him 
in  the  paths  of  truth  will  leave  far  behind  the  questions 
and  the  cavils  respecting  the  endowments  of  imagination. 
I  have  no  desire  to  lead  you  into  the  tangles  of  meta- 
physics; but  I  beg  your  reflection  on  the  passage  cited, 
because  it  is  the  highest  authority  to  be  found  in  philo- 
sophy. The  leading  thought  in  this  profound  meditation 
of  Bacon's,  as  I  understand  it,  is  that  there  dwells  in  the 
human  soul  a  sense — a  faculty — a  power  of  some  kind, 
call  it  by  what  name  you  may — which  craves  more  than 
this  world  affords,  and  which  gives  birth  to  aspirations 
after  something  better  than  the  events  of  our  common 
life;  and  that  the  poet's  function  is  to  minister  to  this 
want.  From  the  earliest  records  of  literature,  the  crea- 
tions of  poetry  in  all  ages  have  found  a  congeniality  in 
the  breast  of  man,  though  the  world  might  be  searched 
in  vain  for  the  archetypes  of  those  creations.  A  great 
modern  poet  boldly  tells  us  of 

"  The  gleam, 

The  light  that  never  was  on  sea  or  land, 
The  consecration,  and  the  poet's  dream." 

and  yet  the  heart  takes  those  dreams  home  to  itself  for 
realities.  Humanly  speaking,  this  is  mysterious  in  our 
nature.  When  a  mind  like  Bacon's  is  brought  to  the 
contemplation,  it  penetrates  to  the  centre  of  the  mystery, 
and  intimates  that  the  solution  is  to  be  found  only  in  the 
inspired  record  of  the  history  of  the  human  soul ;  that  its 


LORD    BACON'S    VIEW    OF    POETRY.  49 


mingled  majesty  and  poverty,  its  aspiration  and  its  desti- 
tution, are  to  be  traced  to  the  fall  from  primeval  purity. 
There  was  a  time  when  the  human  soul  and  the  world  in 
which  it  was  dwelling  were  better  mated ;  when  the  dis- 
cord and  incongruity  described  by  Bacon  had  not  begun : — 

"  Upon  the  breast  of  new-created  earth 
Man  walked;  and  wheresoe'er  he  moved, 
Alone,  or  mated,  solitude  was  not. 
He  heard  upon  the  wind  the  articulate  voice 
Of  God  ;  and  angels  to  his  sight  appeared, 
Crowning  the  glorious  hills  of  Paradise, 
Or  through  the  groves  gliding,  like  morning  mist 
Enkindled  by  the  sun.     He  sat  and  talked 
With  winge'd  messengers,  who  daily  brought 
To  his  small  island  in  the  ethereal  deep 
Tidings  of  joy  and  love." 

The  loss  of  innocence  was  the  beginning  of  a  new  era 
in  the  hiscory  of  our  race.  I  have  no  desire  to  indulge  in 
speculation  on  a  subject  which  has  perplexed  theology; 
enough  is  it  to  believe  what  we  are  taught  by  God's  own 
word : — that  the  fall  was  a  moral  and  physical  revolution. 
But  we  are  not  taught,  either  by  that  oracle  or  by  the 
study  of  the  mind,  that  the  primal  glory  was  wholly 
quenched.  The  faculties  of  man,  fearfully  disordered 
and  corrupted,  had  still  some  remnant  of  their  original 
endowments;  and,  to  the  mind  of  the  great  English  sage, 
the  aspirations  of  poetry  appeared  as  the  struggles  of  a 
once  pure  but  fallen  humanity, — the  strife  of  the  mingled 
elements  of  our  nature, — the  image  of  the  Deity  in  which 
man  was  created,  and  the  dust  into  which  his  soul  was 
breathed. 

From  Lord  Bacon's  magnificent  exposition  I  must 
pass  on  to  another  great  tribute  paid  to  poetry.  His  was 


50  L  E  C  T  U  II  T.    S  E  C  0  X  D. 


the  thought  of  the  philosopher  calmly  looking  (as  Cowley 
said  of  him)  "from  the  mountain-top  of  his  exalted  wit." 
Let  me,  in  the  next  place,  offer  to  your  consideration  some 
of  the  expressions  of  the  lofty  ideas  of  a  poet  upon  his 
own  art.  I  do  not  wish  to  anticipate  what  I  shall  have 
to  say  hereafter  in  the  course  respecting  the  great  English 
epic  poet;  but  I  need  his  authority  for  the  worth  of  poetic 
wisdom,  coming  as  it  does  with  such  weight  from  one  who 
realized  so  gloriously  his  own  high  conceptions  of  his  calling. 

In  the  spirit  of  Milton,  imagination  brought  an  in- 
stinctive sense  of  its  majesty,  which  bursts  forth  in  its  own 
sublime  vindication, — probably  the  most  eloquent  annun- 
ciation of  the  functions  of  the  imagination  ever  uttered. 

"  These  abilities,  (by  which  the  grandest  poetry  is  pro- 
duced,) wheresoever  they  be  found,  are  the  inspired  gift 
of  God,  and  are  of  power,  beside  the  office  of  a  pulpit 
to  unbind  and  cherish  in  a  great  people  the  seeds  of 
virtue  and  public  civility,  to  allay  the  perturbations  of  the 
mind  and  set  the  affections  in  right  tune ;  to  celebrate 
in  glorious  and  lofty  hymns  the  throne  and  equipage 
of  God's  almightiness,  and  what  he  works  and  what  he 
suffers  to  be  wrought  with  high  providence  in  his  church  j 
to  sing  victorious  agonies  of  martyrs  and  saints,  the  deeds 
and  triumphs  of  pious  nations  doing  valiantly  through 
faith  against  the  enemies  of  Christ ;  to  deplore  the  general 
relapses  of  kingdoms  and  states  from  justice  and  God's 
true  worship.  Lastly,  whatsoever  in  religion  is  holy  and 
sublime,  in  virtue  amiable  or  grave, — whatsoever  hath 
passion  or .  admiration  in  all  the  changes  of  that  which  is 
called  fortune  from  without,  or  the  wily  subtilities  and  re- 
fluxes of  man's  thought  from  within, — all  these  things,  with 
a  solid  and  treatable  smoothness,  to  point  out  and  describe." 


MILTON'S    VIEW.  51 


AVith  suet  thoughts  of  the  poet's  office,  Milton  went  on 
in  a  prophetic  mood  to  covenant  for  the  production,  after 
some  years,  of  a  work  "not  to  be  raised  from  tfie  heat  of 
youth  or  the  vapours  of  wine,  like  that  which  flows  at 
waste  from  the  pen  of  some  vulgar  amourist  or  the  trencher- 
fury  of  a  rhyming  parasite, — not  to  be  obtained  by  in- 
vocation of  Dame  Memory  and  her  siren  daughter, —  but 
Ly  devout  prayer  to  that  eternal  Spirit  who  can  enrich 
with  all  utterance  and  knowledge,  and  sends  out  his  sera- 
phim, with  the  halloiced  fire  of  his  altar,  to  touch  and 
purify  the  lips  of  whom  he  pleases." 

After  this,  need  I  seek  to  accumulate  authorities?  What 
more  could  be  added  to  language  radiant  with  the  yet-dis- 
tant splendour  of  the  Paradise  Lost?  Leaving  far  beneath 
all  the  low  and  little  estimates  of  poetry,  it  is  worthy  of 
meditation  that  both  by  Bacon  and  Milton  the  poet's  func- 
tion has  a  participation  of  divineness.  This  is  in  accord- 
ance with  the  testimony  of  time,  as  it  may  be  discovered  in 
language  employed  by  various  nations  and  in  various  ages. 
The  classical  student  need  not  be  reminded  of  the  deriva- 
tive sense  of  the  title  of  poet, — a  meaning  more  obvious  in 
former  days,  when'  the  old  English  word  "maker"  had 
not  fallen  into  disuse.  Alluding  to  another  ancient  tongue 
than  that  from  which  our  word  "poet"  has  been  derived, 
a  writer  of  the  seventeenth  century  remarks, — 

"  'Twaj  surely  prophetic  that  the  name 
Of  prophet  and  of  poet  was  the  same  •" 

and  Cowper  has  the  lines 

"  In  a  Roman  mouth  the  graceful  name 
Of  prophet  and  of  poet  was  the  same." 


52  LECTURE    SECOND. 


A  later  poet,  speaking  of  the  greatest  endowment  of 
imagination,  does  not  fear  to  style  it 

"The  vision  and  the  faculty  divine;" 

and  the  common  voice  of  mankind  recognises  how  sacred 
a  thing  is  a  true  poet's  power,  when,  without  any  sense 
of  profanity,  it  calls  it  by  the  hallowed  name  of  in- 
spiration. 

In  this  use  of  words  there  is  a  meaning;  for  never  can 
words  live  for  ages  on  the  lips  of  men  unless  they  have 
in  them  the  life-sustaining  principles  of  truth.  It  be- 
comes therefore  a  grave  inquiry  in  what  sense  the  poet's 
employment  is  said  to  be  in  a  region  of  divinity.  It 
partakes  of  a  divineness,  to  borrow  Lord  Bacon's  phrase, 
both  in  its  modes  of  action  and  in  the  ends  it  aims  at. 
The  poet's  chief  province  is  invention  and  imagination, — 
the  creative  power  of  the  human  spirit,  as  described  in 
an  admirable  passage  of  Shakspeare  but  too  familiar  to 
quote,  bodying  forth  the  shapes  of  things  unknown. 
The  boundless  scope  of  poetic  invention  I  hope  to  illus- 
trate hereafter,  when  we  come  to  survey  the  creative 
energy  in  all  its  varied  forms  of  our  English  poets, 
better  than  now  by  abstract  description.  Poetry,  as  the 
word  originally  signified,  is  creation,  and  in  this  (let  it 
reverently  be  said)  lies  its  divinity.  It  is  creative; — not 
by  step-by-step  attainments  of  the  reasoning  faculties,  but 
by  processes  which  philosophy  has  not  yet  analyzed.  I  do 
not  question  that  imagination,  like  the  other  intellectual 
powers,  has  its  laws;  but  so  rare  is  the  endowment  in  its 
high  degree  that  mental  science  has  devised  no  theory 
explanatory  of  its  mode  of  action.  For  instance,  the  vision- 
ary world  that  Shakspeare  called  into  existence  and  peopled 


TRUTH  THE  FOUNDATION  OF  POETRY.      53 


•with  creations  is  mysterious  if  the  attempt  is  made  to 
explain  it  apart  from  the  action  of  the  imagination.  Even 
then,  accustomed  as  men  are  to  regard  chiefly  the  more 
subordinate  operations  of  the  mind,  it  raises  admiration  to 
see  how,  taking  names  and  events  obscure  by  a  remote 
antiquity,  he  has  animated  them  with  more  of  life  and  of 
truth  than  ever  could  have  been  gained  from  the  chroni- 
cles or  history.  In  God's  providence  over  the  human 
race,  a  great  poet  is  given  rarely,  and  therefore  stands 
apart  and  above  millions  of  his  kind;  and  hence,  when 
they  behold  him,  not  toiling  with  tedious  and  unsteady 
deductions,  but  scattering  the  light  of  truth  from  the  fire 
kindled  within  his  spirit,  they  give  to  that  fire  the  name 
of  "inspiration."  But  the  divineness  poetry  partakes  of 
is  attributable  also  to  its  efficacy  in  accomplishing  higher 
purposes  than  any  other  department  of  literature.  The 
chief  aim  of  all  genuine  poetry  is  to  teach  by  imaginary 
examples  and  by  the  embodiment  of  abstract  truths.  The 
element  in  which  poetry  dwells  is  truth;  and  when  imagina- 
tion divorces  itself  from  that  relation  it  declines  into  the 
neighbourhood  of  empty  fictions  or  the  dreams  of  lunacy. 
But  there  is  a  prevalent  notion  that  imagination  is  the 
power  that  especially  draws  away  from  truth;  and  hence  it 
is  looked  on  with  apprehensive  distrust.  Doubtless  it  is 
liable  to  grievous  abuse;  and  so,  let  it  be  remembered,  is 
every  talent  committed  to  man,  for  cultivation  or  for  culpa- 
ble neglect.  But,  when  the  inventions  of  poetic  genius  are 
confounded  with  falsehood,  it  is  prejudice  and  vulgar  error. 
It  is  a  narrow  conception  of  truth  which  confines  it  to  what 
are  called  matters  of  fact, — events  which  have  actually  trans- 
pired, and  which  would  exclude  even  the  truths  of  exact 
science.  There  are  truths  of  our  inner  life  as  well  as  of 


64  LECTURE    SECOND. 


the  outward, — spiritual  and  visionary, — of  the  imagination 
and  the  feelings  as  well  as  of  the  senses.  The  record  of  a 
criminal  trial,  with  all  the  details  of  evidence  fortified  by 
the  sanction  of  an  oath,  is  matter-of-fact  truth;  and  yet 
there  is  a  higher  and  better  truth — more  of  the  essence 
of  truth,  and  therefore  more  permanent — in  the  imagi- 
native story  of  the  conscience-stricken  agonies  of  Macbeth, 
— the  blood-stained  hauntings  of  remorse  pursuing  its  vic- 
tim as  he  is  plunged  lower  and  lower  in  the  depths  of  crime. 
What  actual  incidents  are  more  true  than  the  tumultu- 
ous heart-breaking  of  King  Lear?  " Facts  are  fleeting, 
perishable  things;  but  the  spiritual  creations  of  a  true 
poet's  imagination  are  truths  that  wake  to  perish  never!" 
The  prime  virtue  of  all  the  imitative  arts — painting  and 
sculpture  as  well  as  poetry — is  the  representation  of  their 
archetypes  imaginatively.  The  characteristic  of  the  pro- 
ductions of  a  genuine  artist  is  the  predominance  of  imagi- 
nation, without  which  they  sink  into  servile  and  mecha- 
nical copying;  and  it  can  scarcely  escape  the  observation  of 
any  one  who  will  examine  the  style  of  a  portrait  from  a 
master's  hand,  and  that  of  an  inferior  artist,  that  the  exact- 
ness of  a  likeness  mechanically  identical  with  its  original 
does  not  make  the  same  impression  of  truth  as  those  inde- 
scribable touches  which  appeal  through  the  eye  to  the  ima- 
gination. But  I  beg  you  also  to  observe  that  it  is  part  of 
the  very  nature  of  each  one  of  the  Fine  Arts  to  pause  in 
the  process  of  imitation  at  a  point  beyond  which  the  be- 
holder's imagination,  aroused  by  what  is  given,  moves  on 
unconsciously  to  the  completion  of  the  work.  It  is  the 
painter's  part  so  to  combine  imaginatively  light  and  shade 
and  colour  that  we  gaze  on  the  canvass  without  a  thought 
that  the  imitation  of  form  is  supplied  by  the  instinctive 


PAINTING    AND    SCULPTURE.  55 


action  of  imagination.  Again,  the  sculptor's  part  is  the 
imitation  of  form ;  and  he  works  in  marble  because  its 
purity  is  the  fit  material  for  his  abstractions  from  colour. 
Thus  it  is  that  painting  and  sculpture  have  their  respect- 
ive purposes,  beyond  which  they  do  not  aspire,  each 
attaining  what  the  other  omits;  and  the  pleasure  derived 
from  each  is  made  up  of  what  the  eye  beholds  and  the 
imagination  supplies,  the  impression  thus  gained  from  a 
true  work  of  art  being  that  of  truth  in  its  full  integrity. 
This  is  imaginative  imitation.  Now,  there  is  another  spe- 
cies of  work  more  ambitious  than  either  sculpture  or 
painting;  for  it  disdains  the  bounds  of  each;  and  it  might 
be  thought  that  if  there  was  any  mode  of  representing 
the  human  countenance  so  that  there  should  be  at  the 
same  time  resemblance  of  form  as  in  bust  or  statue,  and 
also  of  colour  as  in  painting,  this  would  be  the  most  ex- 
cellent imitation.  There  seems  to  be  a  good  deal  of  rea- 
son in  this :  the  likeness  would  be  so  complete  there  would 
be  no  need  for  the  help  'of  the  imagination  and  no  danger 
of  its  leading  astray.  This  would  be  what  might  be 
called  matter-of-fact  imitation.  And  if  any  one  is  disposed 
to  think  that  it  must  be  more  true  because  more  exact,  let 
him  compare  the  impression  made  by  a  piece  of  sculpture 
or  of  painting  with  that  of  a  figure  or  bust  in  waxwork. 
The  imaginative  delight  awakened  by  the  former  is 
changed  into  disgust  increasing  with  the  closeness  of 
resemblance,  producing  a  kind  of  indignation  at  what 
seems  like  a  device  to  cheat  the  senses. 

The  affinity  between  poetry  and  the  other  Fine  Arts — 
painting  and  sculpture — lies  in  the  principle  common  to 
them  all,  and  which  is  the  very  essence  of  imaginative 
imitation, — the  blending,  in  all  genuine  works  of  art,  like- 


56  LECTURE    SECOND. 


ness  and  unlikeness,  sameness  and  difference.  This,  when 
first  suggested,  seems  paradoxical.  But,  to  show  how  essen- 
tial an  element  difference  is  in  such  imitation,  I  need  only 
remind  you  of  the  stony  and  colourless  imitation  in  sculp- 
ture, and  that  there  could  be  no  greater  outrage  upon  taste 
and  the  principles  of  the  art  than  any  attempt  to  remove  that 
difference  by  superadding  to  the  likeness  of  form  the  like- 
ness of  colour.  Now,  in  poetry,  the  medium  of  imitation  is 
the  more  subtle  one  of  language,  and  the  imagination  and 
the  feelings  are  to  be  moved  by  means  of  words  as  the 
painter  moves  them  by  the  visible  tints  upon  the  canvass 
or  the  sculptor  by  marble.  The  impression  made  by  a 
great  poem  and  a  great  painting  or  statue  are  kindred  and 
analogous :  having  a  common  origin  in  the  creative  energy 
of  genius,  they  are  addressed  to  the  same  faculty  of  imagi- 
nation, and  therefore  the  spiritual  agency  of  all  of  them 
is  alike.  How  close  is  this  affinity  may  be  shown  by  the 
compositions  in  which  poets  convey  the  impressions  made 
on  them  by  the  other  arts.  A  picture,  for  instance,  of 
two  females,  by  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  has  occasioned  these 
lines,  in  which  a  woman's  imagination  has  made  words 
subserve  the  purpose  of  the  canvass: — 

"  The  lady  Blanche,  regardless  of  all  her  lover's  fears, 
To  the  Ursuline  convent  hastens,  and  long  the  abbess  hears : — 
'  Oh,  Blanche,  my  child,  repent  ye  of  the  courtly  life  ye  lead  !" 
Blanche  looked  on  a  rose-bud,  and  little  seemed  to  heed. 
She  looked  on  the  rose-bud,  she  looked  round,  aad  thought 
On  all  her  heart  had  whispered  and  all  the  nun  had  taught : — 
'  I  am  worshipped  by  lovers,  and  brightly  shines  my  fame ; 
All  Christendom  resoundeth  the  noble  Blanche's  name ! 
Nor  shall  I  quickly  wither,  like  the  rose-bud  from  the  tree. 
My  queen-like  graces  shining  when  my  lioauty's  gone  from  me. 


THE    CHILD    AND    THE    SHELL.  57 


But,  when  the  sculptured  marble  is  raised  o'er  my  head, 
And  the  matchless  Blanche  lies  lifeless  among  the  noble  dead, 
This  saintly  Lady  Abbess  hath  made  me  justly  fear 
It  nothing  will  avail  me  that  I  was  worshipped  here.'" 

Within  the  last  two  hours  I  have  had  the  gratification 
of  viewing  an  exquisite  piece  of  art,  which  has  presented 
to  my  mind  the  finest  illustration  I  have  ever  met  with 
of  the  affinity  between  poetry  and  other  imitative'  arts. 
The  work  alluded  to,  I  aui  proud  to  say,  graces  the  home 
of  a  Philadelphia  gentleman, —  one  to  whose  enlightened 
patronage  the  cause  of  the  Fine  Arts  is  greatly  indebted. 
It  is  a  piece  of  statuary  embodying  a  sculptor's  happy 
imagination  who  probably  had  no  thought  that  the  same 
conception  had  been  embodied  by  a  poet's  words, —  a 
passage  in  the  "  Excursion"  presenting  the  same  image : — 

"  I  have  seen 

A  curious  child,  who  dwelt  upon  a  tract 
Of  inland  ground,  applying  to  her  ear 
The  convolutions  of  a  smooth-lipped  shell, 
To  which,  in  silence  hushed,  her  very  soul 
Listened  intensely,  and  her  countenance  soon 
Brightened  with  joy ;  for,  murmuring  from  within, 
Were  heard,  sonorous  cadences,  whereby, 
To  her  belief,  the  monitor  expressed 
Mysterious  union  with  its  native  sea." 

Nor  can  I  omit  the  fine  description,  by  Landor,  of  the 

"  Sinuous  shells  of  pearly  hue 
"Within,  and  they  that  lustre  have  imbibed 
In  the  sun's  palace-porch,  where,  when  unyoked, 
His  chariot-wheel  stands  midway  in  the  wave. 
Shake  one,  and  it  awakens ;  then  apply 
Its  polished  lips  to  your  attentive  ear, 
And  it  remembers  its  august  abodes, 
And  ninrmur?,  as  the  ocean  murmurs  there." 


68  LECTURE    SECOND. 


I  have  spoken  of  the  necessity  of  some  element  of 
difference  in  all  the  arts;  and,  before  dismissing  this 
part  of  the  subject,  it  is  proper  to  inquire  what  con- 
stitutes that  difference  in  poetic  imitation.  Poetry  is 
separated  by  a  bright  distinguishing-line  from  ordi- 
nary language,  inasmuch  as  it  not  only  appropriates  to 
itself  the  choicest  forms  of  speech,  but  also  the  ad- 
ditional graces  of  metrical  harmony.  There  is  thus 
acquired  a  power  peculiar  to  poetry  in  comparison  with 
other  compositions;  for  it  is  enabled  to  address  itself  to 
man's  natural  susceptibility  to  the  beauty  of  a  regular 
succession  of  harmonious  sounds,  and  thus  music  is 
brought  into  alliance.  It  has  been  frequently  suggested 
that  the  most  ancient  poets  were  led  to  adopt  a  metrical 
form,  to  enable  their  hearers,  in  a  barbarous  age,  more 
easily  to  recollect  their  compositions.  If  poetry  were 
like  the  familiar  rhymes  employed  to  recall  the  number 
of  days  in  each  month,  the  theory  might  be  true;  but, 
otherwise,  it  seems  to  me  rather  a  shallow  one.  The 
truth  lies  deeper, —  in  the  influences  exercised  over  the 
heart  by  sound,  when  controlled  by  principles  of  har- 
mony, and  consequently  concurrent  and  subsidiary  to 
the  aims  of  true  poetry.  Besides,  the  poet,  speaking 
better  thoughts  and  better  feelings  than  are  passing 
commonly  through  the  minds  of  men,  instinctively  seeks, 
as  their  appropriate  garb,  a  better  language  and  a  better 
music.  The  pure  heart  of  poetry  needs  the  voice  of  the 
purest  and  most  graceful  forms  of  language.  I  shall 
have  occasion  hereafter  to  illustrate  the  admirable 
adaptation  of  the  English  metres  to  the  expression  of 
various  passions  and  feelings  and  moods  of  imagination : 
at  present  I  can  only  cite  a  poet's  tribute  to  the  influence 


MELODIOUS    SOUXD.  59 


of  melodious  though  unintelligible  sounds, —  a  tribute  in 
strains  as  musical  as  the  music  they  celebrated : — • 

"  Behold  her,  single  in  the  field, 

Ton  solitary  Highland  lass, 
Reaping  and  singing  by  herself: 

Stop  here,  or  gently  pass. 
Alone  she  cuts  and  binds  the  grain, 
And  sings  a  melancholy  strain. 
Oh,  listen  !  for  the  vale  profound 
Is  overflowing  with  the  sound. 

"  No  nightingale  did  ever  chaunt 

More  welcome  notes  to  weary  bands 
Of  travellers,  in  some  shady  haunt, 

Among  Arabian  sands ; 
Such  thrilling  voice  was  never  heard 
In  spring-tiine  from  the  cuckoo-bird, 
Breaking  the  silence  of  the  seas 
Among  the  farthest  Hebrides. 

"  Will  no  one  tell  me  what  she  sings  ? 

Perhaps  the  plaintive  numbers  flow 
For  old,  unhappy,  far-off  things, 

And  battles  long  ago. 
Or  is  it  some  more  humble  lay, 
Familiar  matter  of  the  day, — 
Some  natural  sorrow,  loss,  or  pain, 
That  has  been,  and  may  be  again  ? 

"  Whate'er  the  theme,  the  maiden  snng 
As  if  her  song  could  have  no  ending 

I  saw  her  singing  at  her  work, 
And  o'er  the  sickle  bending: 

I  listened,  motionless  and  still; 

And,  as  I  mounted  up  the  hill, 

The  music  in  my  heart  I  bore 

Long  after  it  was  heard  no  more." 


LECTURE  SECOND. 


Again,  inasmuch  as  one  great  duty  and  labour  of  the 
human  mind  is  the  attainment  of  truth  hy  <rhe  logical  and 
analytical  processes  of  science,  it  is  apt  to  become  an 
habitual  opinion  that  there  is  no  other  truth  than 
scientific  truth,  forgetting  that  it  belongs  to  the  imagina- 
tion and  the  feelings  as  well  as  the  understanding.  Let 
not  my  words  be  perverted  for  a  moment  into  a  dis- 
paragement of  scientific  research;  but  earnestly  do  I  pro- 
test that  it  is  not  all.  The  man  of  science,  wedded  to  his 
analytical  processes,  may  bring  himself  to  look  on  nature 
with  only  a  scientific  eye;  and  at  length  the  intellectual 
part  of  his  being  may  become  wholly  divorced  from  the 
moral.  There  have  been  astronomers  whose  intellects 
have  reached  the  distant  spheres  of  the  material  universe 
and  become  familiar  with  the  courses  of  orbs  millions 
of  miles  on  high,  whose  hearts  at  the  same  time  gro- 
velled in  the  most  pitiable  weakness  of  infidelity  and 
atheism.  The  study  of  nature  may  be  made  too  ex- 
clusively scientific, —  the  intellect  sharpened  while  the 
sensibilities  and  the  imagination  are  deadened.  The 
human  form,  and  the  countenance  beaming  with  intelli- 
gence and  feeling,  may  to  the  eye  of  the  anatomist  be  no 
more  than  the  flesh  and  blood  clothing  a  ghastly  skeleton. 
The  botanist  may  walk  abroad  with  his  thoughts  so  busied 
with  processes  of  classification  that  the  brightest  verdure 
shall  not  touch  his  heart.  To  the  mere  man  of  science 
the  rainbow  may  bring  a  train  of  thought  on  the  laws  of 
reflection  and  refraction,  the  prismatic  colours  and  their 
arrangement:  it  may  bring  all  this;  and,  if  he  has 
cultivated  only  the  analytical  powers  of  his  mind,  it  may 
bring  nothing  more.  But  all  the  truth  is  not  in  the 
books  of  Optics.  From  childhood  we  are  taught  that  the 


SCIENTIFIC    INVESTIGATION    OF    TRUTH. 


bow  was  set  in  the  clouds  to  inspire  confidence  and  hope 
in  the  breasts  of  those  who  had  witnessed  the  terrors  of 
the  Deluge,  and  as  a  perpetual  emblem  of  divine  mercy 
and  protection.  Knowing  by  what  hand  it  was  placed 
there,  and  for  what  purpose,  it  is  no  great  stretch  of  faith 
to  believe  that  there  is  in  it — we  know  not  how — an 
intrinsic  power  to  stir  in  the  breast  of  each  descendant 
of  Xoah  somewhat  of  the  same  emotion  as  it  awakened 
when  first  resting  on  the  heights  of  Ararat.  With  all 
this,  science  does  not  purport  to  have  any  thing  to  do; 
and,  accordingly,  all  that  it  teaches  respecting  that  phe- 
nomenon cannot  touch  the  feeblest  sympathy.  But 
there  are  probably  few  minds  so  dull  as  not  to  recognise 
an  expression  of  a  feeling  of  their  own  in  the  simple 
exclamation  bursting  from  a  poet's  lips  : — 

"  My  heart  leaps  up  when  I  behold 

A  rainbow  in  the  sky  ! 
So  was  it  when  rny  life  began; 
So  is  it  now  I  am  a  man ; 
So  be  it  when  I  shall  grow  old, 
Or  let  me  die  !" 

The  inquiry  may  naturally  suggest  itself  whether  the 
imaginative  truth  which  poetry  aspires  to  is  not  above 
the  reach  of  humanity  and  unavailing  therefore  to  its 
necessities.  Unquestionably,  if  any  one  goes  forth  into 
active  life  with  an  undisciplined  imagination,  expecting 
from  the  world  what  the  world  cannot  give,  the  result  is 
as  disastrous  as  the  aim  is  irrational.  But  if  the  heart 
take  counsel  of  imagination  for  the  guidance  of  its  pas- 
sions, the  chastening  and  elevating  of  its  affections,  there 
is  no  danger  in  the  he iyht  of  the  imaginative  standard. 


LECTURE     SECOXD. 


la  proof  of  this  position  there  has  been  conclusively 
quoted  that  precept  of  the  Saviour's  which  bids  men,  with 
all  the  accumulation  of  their  faculties,  "  Be  perfect,"  and, 
more  than  that,  sets  before  them  for  imitation  the  model 
inimitable  of  God's  own  perfection.  The  precept  may 
with  difficulty  be  reconciled  with  the  rules  of  our  calcu- 
lating faculties,  but  it  is  addressed  to  the  imagination  and 
comprehended  by  it.  It  stands  the  most  sublime  of  all 
the  divine  sentences  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, — the 
most  ennobling  and  elevating  words  ever  spoken  to  poor 
humanity.  It  may  also  be  noticed,  in  vindication  of  the 
calumniated  power  under  discussion,  that  the  Christian 
rule  for  the  guidance  of -our  conduct  to  others  is  addressed 
to  the  imagination ;  and  thus  you  may  see  that  one  evil  of 
a  sluggish  imagination  will  be  a  sluggish  sympathy  with 
our  fellow-beings. 

But  the  energies  of  poetry  are  employed  not  only  in 
invention,  but  in  the  discovery  of  truth : — not  only,  in 
Lord  Bacon's  words,  "for  the  invention  of  a  more  ample 
greatness,  a  more  exact  goodness,  and  a  more  absolute 
variety,"  but  to  revive  the  neglected  glories  of  the  world 
as  it  is,  to  gather  the  fragments  of  splendour  from  amid  the 
ruins  of  our  fallen  nature,  to  lift  from  the  soul  the  weight 
of  custom  and  materialism,  to  awaken  a  consciousness  to 
the  neglected  emotions  of  daily  life,  and  to  trace  the  as- 
sociations between  the  universe  of  sense  and  the  spiritual 
life  within  us.  These  are  the  aims  of  true  poetry;  and  to 
grasp  the  thoughts  and  feelings  which  are  perpetually  flit- 
ting across  the  mind,  eluding  the  touch  of  a  gross  philo- 
sophy, there  are  a  thousand  influences  at  work,  which  in 
the  pride  of  our  calculating  faculties  are  despised,  because 
they  are  not  susceptible  of  .measurement  by  the  under- 


HUMAN    SYMPATHY    DEEPENED   BY    POETRY.         63 


standing.  "Will  any  one  who  has  reflected  on  the  constitu- 
tion of  man,  both  spiritual  and  material,  and  the  world  in 
which  he  is  placed,  venture  to  say,  for  instance,  that  the  sun 
travels  his  glorious  course  only  to  light  men  to  their  work 
and  give  them  warmth?  Why  then  does  he  rise  in  such 
magnificence  and  why  set  with  such  ever-varying  splen- 
dour ?  Why  is  it  that  every  unclouded  night  ten  thousand 
stars  are  looking  down  upon  us  from  the  heavens  ?  Why 
is  it  that  even  the  storm  comes  arrayed  with  a  sublimity 
of  its  own?  Why  does  the  earth  break  forth  from  its 
winter's  torpor  in  all  the  luxuriance  of  spring?  And  why 
is  there  beauty  in  the  human  countenance  ?  Men  and 
women  would  no  doubt  accomplish  their  work  as  well  and 
be  as  useful  if  every  face  we  looked  on  was  the  face  of 
ugliness.  Influences  that  cannot  be  expounded  are  active 
on  every  side  and  during  every  period  of  life;  and,  though 
unimportant  when  mentioned  separately,  no  one  can 
divine  how  great  is  their  sway  in  the  formation  of  human 
character.  Who  can  explain  how  music  falling  on  the 
ear  moves  the  spirit  within  us  ?  and  yet  we  know  that  it 
can  give  courage  in  the  hour  of  battle  and  fervour  to  acts 
of  devotion.  I  cannot  tell  how  the  soft  blue  of  an  un- 
clouded sky  so  impresses  the  feelings  with  a  sense  of  its 
placid  beauty  that  the  heart  of  him  who  looks  up  to  it 
from  amidst  the  turmoil  of  life  is  touched  as  with  a 
blessing ;  but  this  I  know : — that,  when  God  foretold  the 
curses  with  which  he  would  visit  his  rebellious  people, 
among  the  penalties  announced  by  the  inspired  lawgiver 
there  was  a  threat  that  the  sky  should  be  to  them  like 
brass. 

It  is  the  poet's  duty  to  deepen  human  sympathies  and 
to  enlarge  their  sphere;    to  cast  a  light  upon  the  com- 


LECTURE    SKCONO. 


mon  heart  of  the  whole  race ;  to  calm  the  anxieties  and 
to  sustain  the  highest  and  farthest  purposes  of  our  being. 
Imagination,  the  prime  nourisher  of  hope,  is  the  charac- 
teristic of  man  as  a  progressive  creature;  and  its  most 
strenuous  efforts  are  given  to  dignify,  to  elevate,  to  purify, 
and  to  spiritualize.  In  the  history  of  the  literature 
of  all  nations  the  herald  of  its  day  is  the  morning- 
star  of  poetry;  and,  when  it  passes  away,  the  last  light 
that  lingers  after  it  is  the  ever-aspiring  ray  from  its  set- 
ing  orb.  In  all  ages  and  conditions  of  society  it  is 
present;  for  it  is  supplied  from  "the  inexhaustible 
springs  of  truth  and  feeling  which  are  ever  gurgling  and 
boiling  up  in  the  caverns  of  the  human  heart."  Such 
being  the  purpose  of  poetry,  it  may  be  safely  said  that  it 
is  moral  wisdom.  Its  closest  affinity  is  with  religion; 
for  it  ministers  to  faith  and  hope  and  love.  A  meek  and 
dutiful  attendant  in  the  temple  of  faith,  it  is  in  humble 
alliance  for  the  defence  and  rescue  of  exposed  humanity. 
It  has  been  sagely  remarked  by  a  philosophic  writer  that 
the  belief  is  erroneous  that  the  hearts  of  the  many  are 
constitutionally  weak,  languishing,  and  slow  to  answer 
the  requisitions  of  things ;  and  that  rather  the  true  sor- 
row of  humanity  consists  in  this : — not  that  the  mind 
fails,  but  that  the  course  and  demands  of  action  and  life 
so  rarely  correspond  with  the  dignity  and  intensity  of 
human  desires,  and  hence  that  which  is  slow  to  languish 
is  too  easily  turned  aside  and  abused.  To  this  are  all  the 
great  productions  of  the  Muse  directed,  controlling  the 
discord  between  the  course  of  life  and  the  dignity  of 
human  desires,  chastening  the  passions  and  guiding 
them  in  safe  channels  and  to  worthy  objects.  In  Shak- 
speare's  wonderful  delineation  of  the  melancholy  of  Ham- 


SPIRITUAL    ASPIRATIONS.  65 


let,  it  is  the  representation  of  a  noble  heart  aching  with 
a  sense  of  the  hollowness,  the  insufficiency  of  the  stale 
and  unprofitable  uses  of  the  world  to  answer  its  aspira- 
tions. There  is  the  wretchedness  and  the  desolation  of  a 
spirit  feeling  itself  at  variance  with  life;  and  this  morbid 
mood  of  mind  speaks  in  words  expressive  of  a  gloomy 
absence  of  delight  in  all  he  looks  upon,  and  yet  at  the 
same  time  the  loftiest  consciousness  of  the  endowments 
of  the  human  soul : — "  It  goes  so  heavily  with  my  dis- 
position, that  this  goodly  frame,  the  earth,  seems  to  me  a 
sterile  promontory;  this  most  excellent  canopy,  the  air, 
this  brave  o'erhanging  firmament, — this  majestic  roof, 
fretted  with  golden  fire, — why,  it  appears  no  other  thing 
to  me  than  a  foul  and  pestilent  congregation  of  vapours. 
What  a  piece  of  work  is  man !  How  noble  in  reason !  how 
infinite  in  faculties !  in  form,  and  moving,  how  express 
and  admirable !  in  action,  how  like  an  angel !  in  appre- 
hension, how  like  a  god !  the  beauty  of  the  world !  the 
paragon  of  animals  I" 

This  is  the  language  of  disease, —  of  disease  to  which 
all  are  exposed,  because,  amid  the  frailty  and  corruption 
of  our  natural  desires,  the  heart  will  sink  down  to  low 
objects  and  be  perverted  to  unholy  ones.  When  the 
supplies  of  the  heart  fail  and  its  cravings  cannot  find 
their  proper  nourishment,  the  world  and  all  that  is  upon 
it  become  unsubstantial  and  unreal.  The  life,  in  which 
is  staked  eternal  happiness,  becomes  worthless  and  barren, 
as  it  seemed  to  the  guilty  fancy  of  Macbeth, — "this 
bank  and  shoal  of  time."  It  is  poetry  that  is  charged 
with  the  duty  of  ministering  its  help  to  this  peril  of 
humanity.  Imagination,  chastened  and  cherished,  will 
discover  dignity  and  happiness  in  life's  lowliest  duties, 


66  LECTURE    SECOND. 


aiid,  rising  higher,  will  behold — as  an  angel  might  behold 
— this  earth  with  its  dark  sea,  with  all  that  is  vile  upon 
the  surface  and  with  the  nations  of  the  dead  mouldering 
beneath,  yet  a  star  glittering  in  the  firmament  and  peopled 
with  beings  redeemed  for  immortality. 

If  such  be  the  nature  and  the  power  of  poetry,  it  should 
not  be  difficult  to  discover  some  mighty  influences  ex- 
erted by  it  upon  the  mind  of  man.  When  we  look  into 
the  region  of  paganism,  what  was  the  high  poetry  of  the 
ancients  but  a  struggle  for  something  more  adequate  than 
a  sensual  faith  to  fill  the  caverns  of  the  heart  ?  When 
the  knowledge  of  the  Godhead,  too  vast  for  the  fallen 
mind,  was  dispersed  into  the  fantasies  of  polytheism, — 
when  a  thousand  deities  were  enshrined  in  gorgeous 
temples  and  in  the  household, — when  men  were  bowing 
down  before  images,  or  worshipping  the  sun,  or  fire,  or 
whatever  they  might  chance  to  turn  to, —  amid  all  these 
perverted  creeds  the  most  sublime  aspirations,  those  ap- 
proaching nearest  to  the  sphere  of  truth,  were  the  efforts 
of  poetic  genius.  It  was  neither  reason  nor  the  lore  of 
philosophic  schools,  but  the  creative  faculty  of  imagina- 
tion, that  wrestled  most  strenuously  with  paganism.  The 
moral  wisdom  of  ancient  heathendom  was  in  its  great 
poems.  It  was  by  the  breath  of  imagination  that  the 
mist  of  superstition  was  broken ;  and  ever  and  anon  a 
portion  of  it  floated  upward,  a  white  and  sunlit  cloud. 

The  philosophy  of  the  most  enlightened  nation  of 
antiquity  went  down,  down,  till  it  settled  into  the  iron 
inhumanity  of  Stoicism  and  the  imbruted  sensuality  and 
fiend-like  scorn  of  the  Epicurean;  but  in  the  domains 
of  imagination  the  light  and  warmth  of  truth  were  never 
wholly  quenched.  On  that  sublime  occasion  when  an 


POETRY    IRRECONCILABLE    WITH    STOICISM.          67 


inspired  apostle  struck  a  blow  at  the  superstitions  of 
Greece,  (St.  Paul  at  Athens,)  his  spirit  stirring  within 
him, — for  he  "  saw  the  city  wholly  given  to  idolatry," — he 
was  encountered  by  philosophers;  and  thus  was  the  scorn- 
ful question : — "What  will  this  babbler  say?"  "And  when 
he  preached  the  resurrection  of  the  dead  they  mocked." 
Now,  when  the  pride  of  pagan  philosophy  was  thus 
arrayed  in  enmity  against  Christianity,  I  beg  you  to 
reflect  upon  the  fact  that  enough  of  truth  had  been  pre- 
served in  pagan  poetry  to  enable  that  same  apostolic 
tongue  to  mingle  the  familiar  words  of  the  Greek  poets 
with  the  lessons  of  the  gospel. 

So  is  it  in  all  ages.  What  is  indeed  poetry  is  sub- 
servient to  truth  and  to  man's  moral  growth.  Our  com- 
plex nature — the  mysterious  mingling  of  the  spiritual 
and  the  material — baffles  philosophy;  and,  reviewing  the 
annals  of  knowledge  and  looking  only  to  its  human 
sources,  a  deeper  insight  into  the  nature  of  the  soul  has 
been  gained  by  poetry  than  by  countless  theories  from 
the  exploded  dogmas  of  antiquity  even  to  the  latest 
metaphysical  scheme  devised  by  the  materialism  or  mys- 
ticism of  our  own  times.  The  light  of  revelation  shut 
out,  this  earthly  life  is  a  long  and  darksome  cavern;  and 
when  in  imagination  I  behold  the  human  race  threading 
their  way  through  it,  I  see  the  mighty  poets,  at  distant 
intervals,  the  only  torch-bearers  in  the  vast  procession, 
holding  on  high  a  light  to  reach  the  rock-ribbed  roof. 
What  is  it  but  their  truth  that  has  perpetuated  their 
poems  better  than  all  the  literature  of  remote  times,  and 
brought  down  in  safety  the.  Homeric  poems  from  an  age 
so  ancient  that  history  has  never  reached  it?  What  fact 
could  I  mention  more  impressive  than  the  existence  of 


LECTURE    SECOND. 


those  poems, — at  first  dependent  on  the  mere  memory  of 
an  affectionate  admiration,  and  then  on  the  perishable 
records  in  ancient  use,  and  yet  preserved  probably 
more  than  three  thousand  years?  Their  moral  wisdom 
has  won  the  blessing  of  length  of  days.  "When  our 
thoughts  seek  other  acquaintance  than  what  the  Bible 
gives  with  ages  long  ago,  they  travel  back  to  Homer. 
Of  all  the  literature  other  than  what  was  recorded  by 
direct  inspiration  he  is  reverenced  as  the  father.  In 
the  fine  lines  of  a  living  poet,  little  known, — 

"Far  from  all  measured  space,  yet  clear  and  plain 
As  sun  at  noon,  '  a  mighty  orb  of  song' 
Illumes  extremest  heaven.     Beyond  the  throng 
Of  lesser  stars,  that  rise,  and  wax,  and  wane, — 
The  transient  rulers  of  the  fickle  main, — 
One  steadfast  light  gleams  through  the  dark  and  long 
And  narrowing  aisle  of  memory.     How  strong ! 
How  fortified  with  all  the  numerous  train 
Of  human  truths !     Great  poet  of  thy  kind 
Wert  thou,  whose  verse,  capacious  as  the  sea 
And  various  as  the  voices  of  the  wind, 
Swelled  with  the  gladness  of  the  battle's  glee, 
And  yet  could  glorify  infirmity, 
When  Priam  wept,  or  shame-struck  Helen  pined." 

v 

If  we  seek  to  judge  of  poetry  by  recorded  instances  of 
its  influence,  there  might  be  cited  the  classical  event 
commemorated  by  Milton, — the  fierceness  of  Spartan  and 
Macedonian  warfare  checked  by  verse,  when 

"The  great  Emathian  conqueror  bid  spare 
The  house  of  Pindarus,  when  tower  and  temple 
"\Vent  to  the  ground;  and  the  repeated  air 
Of  sad  Electra's  poet  had  the  power 
To  save  the  Athenian  walls  from  ruin  bare." 


LOYALTY    AND    CHIVALRY.  69 


Or  in  modern  history  might  be  suggested  that  beauti- 
ful incident  in  the  life  of  the  conqueror  of  Canada, 
•when,  on  the  eve  of  the  victory  upon  the  "Heights 
of  Abraham,"  Wolfe  expressed  a  willingness  to  exchange 
the  anticipated  glory  of  his  conquest  for  the  fame 
of  Gray's  Elegy.  But,  in  arguing  from  historically- 
recorded  instances  of  poetical  influences,  let  me  refer  to 
cases  of  wider  operation.  It  is  stated  by  Bishop  Burnet, 
in  the  "  History  of  his  Own  Times,"  that,  when  James 
II.  was  in  very  unsteady  possession  of  the  English 
throne,  a  ballad  was  made — treating  the  Papists,  and 
chiefly  the  Irish,  in  a  very  ridiculous  manner,  and  with 
a  burden,  said  to  be  Irish  words — that  made  an  im- 
pression on  the  king's  army  that  cannot  be  imagined  by 
those  who  saw  it  not.  The  whole  army — and,  at  last, 
the  people,  both  in  city  and  country — were  singing  it 
perpetually;  and  "perhaps,"  he  adds,  "never  had  so 
slight  a  thing  so  great  an  effect."  Again,  if  a  song 
helped  to  bring  about  the  Revolution  of  1688  and  to 
drive  the  Stuarts  from  their  dynasty,  another  song,  har- 
monizing with  another  mood  of  the  people's  heart, — the 
sentiment  of  ancient  loyalty, — was  near  bringing  the 
exiled  family  back  again.  In  the  rebellion  of  1745, 
when  the  young  Pretender  made  his  victorious  march 
upon  Edinburgh  to  set  his  banished  foot  on  the  threshold 
of  the  palace  of  his  forefathers,  the  lineage  of  Scotland's 
ancient  kings  was  welcomed  to  its  own  again ;  and  every 
breeze  that  blew  over  Scotland — highland  and  lowland, 
the  streets  of  the  metropolis  and  the  blasted  heath  of 
distant  moors — brought  with  it  the  burden  of  the  cava- 
lier-song chanted  by  loyal  Scotsmen  to  the  music  of  the 
Highland  Clans : — 


70  LECTURE    SECOND. 


"  Then,  Fear,  avaunt !  upon  the  hill 
My  hope  shall  cast  her  anchor  still, 
Until  I  see  some  peaceful  dove 
Bring  back  the  branch  I  dearly  love. 
Then  will  I  wait,  till  the  waters  abate, 

Which  now  disturb  my  troubled  brain, 
Else  never  rejoice  till  I  hear  the  voice 

That  the  king  enjoys  his  own  again." 


In  proof  of  the  enduring  influence  of  what  is  addressed 
to  the  imagination,  far  higher  authority  may  be  adduced. 
In  the  sacred  history  of  the  chosen  race  of  Israel,  when 
the  promised  land  was  almost  reached  and  the  inspired 
lawgiver  and  leader  was  to  relinquish  his  great  charge, 
the  command  of  the  Deity  came  to  him,  bidding  him 
write  a  song  to  be  taught  to .  the  children  of  Israel,  to  be 
put  into  their  mouths  that  it  might  be  a  witness  against 
them  in  after-ages.  When  the  Divine  Providence  de- 
signed to  imprint  upon  the  memory  of  the  nation  what 
should  endure  generation  after  generation,  he  inspired  his 
servant  to  speak,  not  in  the  stern  language  of  reason  and 
law,  but  in  the  impassioned  strains  of  imagination.  The 
last  tones  of  that  voice  which  had  roused  his  countrymen 
from  slavery  and  sensuality  in  Egypt  and  cheered  and 
threatened  and  rebuked  them  during  their  wanderings, 
which  had  announced  the  statutes  of  Jehovah,  had  pro- 
claimed victory  to  the  obedient  and  pronounced  judg- 
ment on  the  rebellious, — the  last  tones  which  were  to  go 
on  sounding  and  sounding  into  distant  ages, — were  the 
tones  of  poetry.  The  last  inspiration  which  came  down 
from  God  into  the -heart  of  Moses  burst  forth  in  that 
sublime  ode  which  was  his  death-song.  And  why  was 
this?  "  It  shall  come  to  pass,"  are  the  words  of  Scripture, 


THE    SONGS    OF    ISRAEL.  11 


"when  many  evils  and  troubles  are  befallen  them,  that 
this  song  shall  testify  against  them  as  a  witness ;  for  it 
shall  not  be  forgotten  out  of  the  mouths  of  their  chil- 
dren." Well  may  we  conceive  how,  in  after-times,  when 
Israel  was  driven  by  the  hand  of  Midian  into  caves  and 
dens, — when,  smitten  by  the  Philistines,  the  Ark  of  God 
was  snatched  from,  them, — when,  after  Jerusalem  had 
known  its  highest  glory,  the  sword  of  the  King  of  the  Chal- 
dees  smote  their  young  men  in  the  sanctuary,  and  spared 
neither  young  man  nor  maiden,  old  man  nor  him  that 
stooped  for  age, — or  when  the  dark-browed  Israelite  was 
wandering  in  Nineveh  or  Babylon,  an  exile  and  a  slave, — 
how  must  there  have  risen  on  his  heart  the  memory  of 
that  song,  with  its  sublime  image  of  God's  protection :  "As 
an  eagle  stirreth  up  her  nest,  fluttereih  over  Tier  young, 
spreadeth  abroad  her  wings,  taketh  them,  beareth  them 
on  her  wings,  so  the  Lord  alone  did  bear  them;  and 
there  was  no  strange  God  with  him:"  or  its  other  mighty 
appeal  to  the  imagination  in  the  threat: — "/  lift  up  my 
hand  to  heaven,  and  say,  I  live  forever.  If  1  whet  my 
glittering  sword,  and  my  hand  taJce  hold  on  judgment, 
I  will  render  vengeance  to  mine  enemies,  and  will  reward 
them  that  hate  me." 

When  any  one  is  disposed  to  undervalue  poetry,  it 
should  be  remembered  that  the  one  volume  of  divine  pre- 
diction addressed  to  all  mankind  is  the  most  poetical  on 
which  the  eye  has  ever  rested.  It  is  the  proudest  attribute 
of  imagination  that,  when  the  wisdom  of  God  came  down 
to  earth  to  speak  to  man  through  inspired  lips,  it  was 
addressed  eminently  to  this  faculty  of  the  mind;  and  it  is 
worth  a  thousand  arguments  in  defence  of  poetry, — the 
simple  fact,  whether  explained  or  no,  that  inspired  patriot- 


LECTURE    SECOND. 


ism  and  prayer  and  praise  and  thanksgiving  took  the 
voice  of  song,  and  that  prophecy,  and  even  the  Redeemer's 
lessons,  are  glowing  with  the  fervour  of  the  visionary 
power. 

It  not  unfrequently  happens  that,  the  dignity  of  poetry 
and  its  value  admitted,  the  subject  is  dismissed  with  the 
thought  that  what  is  called  a  taste  for  poetry  is  not  with- 
in the  power  of  the  will  to  attain.  The  degree  in  which  it 
may  be  acquired  will  indeed  vary  with  the  proportion  of 
imagination  possessed  by  each  reader;  but  it  is  wholly 
erroneous  to  suppose  that  accurate  taste  in  poetry  or  any 
of  the  kindred  arts  is  other  than  an  acquired  talent.  It 
is  an  acquisition  by  reflection  and  continued  intercourse 
with  the  best  models ;  it  is  the  result  of  intellectual  and 
moral  activity;  and  the  notion  that  it  is  a  natural  gift — an 
instinct,  as  it  were — is  the  conclusion  of  ignorance  or  the 
fallacious  plea  of  mental  sluggishness.  The  fallacy  has 
been  philosophically  traced  to  its  source  by  a  writer 
whose  language  will  best  serve  to  present  the  truth  to 
you  :— 

"  Taste  is  a  word  which  has  been  forced  to  extend  its 
services  far  beyond  the  point  to  which  philosophy  would 
have  confined  them.  It  is  a  metaphor  taken  from  a  pas- 
sive sense  of  the  human  body  and  transferred  to  things 
which  are  in  their  essence  not  passive, — to  intellectual  acts 
and  operations.  As  nations  decline  in  productive  and 
creative  power  they  value  themselves  upon  a  presumed 
refinement  of  judging.  The  word  'taste'  has  been 
stretched  to  the  sense  which  it  bears  in  modern  Europe 
by  habits  of  self-conceit,  inducing  that  inversion  in  the 
order  of  things  whereby  a  passive  faculty  is  made  para- 
mount among  the  faculties  conversant  with  the  Fine  Arts. 


TASTE,    A    WRONG     NAME.  73 


Proportion  and  congruity,  the  requisite  knowledge  being 
supposed,  are  subjects  upon  which  taste  may  be  trusted. 
It  is  competent  to  this  office;  for,  in  its  intercourse  with 
these,  the  mind  is  passive,  and  it  is  affected  painfully  or 
pleasurably  as  by  an  instinct.  But  the  profound  and  ex- 
quisite in  feeling,  the  lofty  and  universal  in  thought  and 
imagination,  or,  in  ordinary  language,  the  pathetic  and 
sublime,  are  neither  of  them,  accurately  speaking,  objects 
of  a  faculty  which  could  never,  without  a  sinking  in  the 
spirit  of  nations,  have  been  designated  by  the  metaphor 
Taste.  And  why?  Because,  without  the  exertion  of  a 
co-operating  power  in  the  mind  of  the  reader,  there  can 
be  no  adequate  sympathy  with  either  of  these  emotions : 
without  this  auxiliary  impulse,  elevated  or  profound  pas- 
sion cannot  exist."  */ 
That  which  is  so  inadequately  called  a  taste  for  poetry 
is  the  knowledge  of  the  abiding  principles  in  human 
nature  on  which  the  art  rests  and  the  feelings  which 
recognise  their  truth.  It  is  the  high  office  of  philosophic 
criticism  to  minister  to  it.  In  the  unripe  and  undisci- 
plined period  of  taste,  vicious  productions  will  win  its 
favour;  and  only  with  the  chastened  and  invigorated 
spirit  will  there  be  congeniality  with  chaste  and  elevated 
models.  The  value  of  such  taste  is  enhanced  at  every 
period  of  its  improvement,  until  at  length  it  brings  that 
deep  emotion  of  delight  familiar  to  a  cultivated  imagina- 
tion,—  a  rich  dowry  of  intellectual  and  moral  happiness. 
The  passionate  sensibility  which  is  an  element  of  poetic 
character  may,  indeed,  increase  the  pains  as  well  as  the 
pleasures  of  the  spirit;  but  another  element  is  philosophic 
faith,  whose  happy  attendants  are  love  and  hope.  The 
dark  periods  are  momentary  because  uncongenial;  and 


74  LECTURE    SECOND. 


the  main  portion  of  a  true  poet's  existence  —  I  speak 
in  reference  to  his  spiritual  life  —  is  happy  above  the 
lot  of  mere  worldly  intellects.  When  a  kte  poet 
exclaims, — 

"  Most  men 

Are  cradled  into  poetry  by  wrong : 
They  learn  in  suffering  what  they  teach  in  song," 

it  was  the  expression  of  a  passing  morbid  sentiment. 
So  it  was  but  a  chance  and  discordant  mood  that  was 
meant  in  that  noble  stanza  of  Wordsworth : — 

"  I  thought  of  Chatterton,  the  marvellous  boy, — 
The  sleepless  soul  that  perished  in  his  pride 
Of  him  who  walked  in  glory  and  in  joy, 
Following  his  plough  along  the  mountain-side. 
By  our  own  spirits  are  we  deified : 
We  poets  in  our  youth  begin  in  gladness ; 
But  thereof  come  in  the  end  despondency  and  madness.'1 

I  shall  have  occasion  hereafter  to  treat  of  the  disordered 
intellect  and  melancholy  of  Cowper ;  of  the  insanity  of 
Collins ;  of  Chatterton's  fearful  frenzy,  calmed  only  by 
the  cup  of  poison;  of  the  sad  part  of  Burns's  career; 
and  to  show  that  none  of  them  had  their  origin  in  the 
gift  of  imagination.  But  in  the  pages  of  biography  I 
know  of  nothing  more  sublime  and  illustrative  of  the  soul- 
sustaining  power  of  poetry  than  the  hermit  old  age  of 
Milton.  The  happy  visions  of  his  youth  were  followed 
by  a  tempestuous  life,  in  which  one  storm  of  disappoint- 
ment after  another  burst  upon  his  devoted  head.  As  a 
patriot,  a  Christian,  a  husband,  and  perhaps  as  a  father, 
his  best  hopes  were  frustrated.  In  the  arena  of  political 
life  and  in  the  sacred  recess  of  home  his  heart  was  as 


MILTON"  — COLERIDGE.  75 


hopeless  as  his  sightless  eyes,  but  happiness  communed 
with  him  in  the 

"  Unpolluted  temple  of  his  mind." 

He  went  away  from  an  age  that  was  unworthy  of  him, — 
not  to  complain,  not  to  repine,  not  to  stain  his  spirit  with 
bitterness,  but  to  build 

"  Immortal  Inys, 

Though  doomed  to  tread  in  solitary  ways, 
Darkness  before  and  danger's  voice  behind. 
Yet  not  alone,  nor  helpless  to  repel 
Sad  thoughts ;  for  from  above  the  starry  sphere 
Come  secrets,  whispered  nightly  to  his  ear; 
And  the  pure  spirit  of  celestial  light 
Shines  through  his  soul,  '  that  he  may  see  and  tell 
Of  things  invisible  to  mortal  sight.' " 

The  same  spiritual  visitant  irradiated  the  gifted  but 
darkly-diseased  existence  of  Coleridge;  for  from  his  very 
heart  there  came  the  gratitude  of  that  wise  acknowledg- 
ment : — "  Poetry  has  been  to  me  its  own  exceeding  great 
reward.  It  has  soothed  my  afflictions ;  it  has  multiplied 
and  refined  my  epjoyments;  it  has  endeared  solitude; 
p.nd  it  has  given  me  the  habit  of  wishing  to  discover  the 
good  and  beautiful  in  all  that  meets  and  surrounds  me." 
Let  me  also  bring  the  calm  but  earnest  testimony  of  a 
living  writer,  eminent  in  another  department  of  letters, 
whose  life,  devoted  to  laborious  research,  has  produced 
three  great  historical  works,  each  sufficient  to  give  him 
fame.  It  is  in  the  latest  of  these  that  Mr.  Ilallam  re- 
marks, "They  who  have  known  what  it  is,  when  afar 
from  books,  in  solitude,  or  in  travelling,  or  in  the  inter- 
vals of  worldly  cares,  to  feed  on  poetical  recollections, 


70  LECTURE    SECOND. 


to  murmur  over  the  beautiful  lines  whose  cadence  has 
long  delighted  the  ear,  to  recall  the  sentiments  and  images 
•which  retain  by  association  the  charm  which  early  years 
once  gave  them, — they  will  feel  the  inestimable  value 
of  committing  to  the  memory,  in  the  prime  of  its  power, 
what  it  will  easily  receive  and  indelibly  retain.  And  I 
know  not,  indeed,  whether  an  education  that  deals  much 
with  poetry — such  as  is  still  in  use  in  England — has  any 
more  solid  argument  among  many  in  its  favour  than  that 
it  lays  the  foundation  of  intellectual  pleasures  at  the  ex- 
treme of  life." 

It  is  mental  inactivity  that  is  so  fatal  to  all  just  criti- 
cism and  to  the  genial  appreciation  of  poetry.  No  one 
who  takes  up  poetry  as  a  mere  matter  of  elegant  amuse- 
ment or  an  indolent  recreation  need  expect  to  look 
higher  than  the  most  subordinate  departments  of  the  art. 
A  great  poem  is  the  production  of  all  the  noblest  faculties 
of  the  human  mind;  and  what  but  the  rash  presumption 
of  ignorance  can  suppose  that  such  works  are  to  be 
approached  except  by  strenuous  thought,  by  reverential 
study,  and  by  deep  meditation.  In  this  lies  the  im- 
measurable space  between  poems  and  what  are  usually 
termed  works  of  fiction.  The  common  run  of  novels  and 
romances  are  read  with  scarce  any  intellectual  co-opera- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  reader,  the  gratification  for  the 
most  part  consisting  in  mere  relief  from  vacuity  of  mind. 
The  difference  is  as  wide,  too,  in  the  enjoyment  derived 
from  the  two  great  classes  of  works  of  imagination.  That 
from  the  novel  is  fugitive,  it  being  praise  to  say  of  a  novel 
that  it  can  be  read  with  pleasure  a  second  time,  and  a 
more  frequent  recurrence  being  a  rare  tribute  to  its  merits. 


DUE    !>HOP01iTION    OF    INTELLECTUAL    POWERS.    77 


Applying  the  same  test  to  poetry,  the  indisposition,  on 
the  part  of  any  one  competent  to  judge,  to  peruse  a  poem 
a  second  time  is  almost  equivalent  to  its  condemnation. 
The  higher  works  of  the  art  comprehend  a  fund  of  intel- 
lectual interest  inexhaustible.  Nine  out  of  ten  novels, 
when  read,  are  flung  aside  forever;  while  at  each  study 
of  a  great  poem  the  imagination  expands  with  the  per- 
ception of  new  beauties  and  new  powers.  With  each 
expansion  of  the  imagination  effected  by  reflection  and 
familiarity  with  the  classic  models  a  deeper  insight  is 
gained  into  the  glories  of  the  spirit  of  a  great  poet.  In 
the  volume  of  the  great  dramatist,  for  instance,  there  are 
depths  innumerable  that  have  not  yet  been  fathomed, 
and  which  remain  to  be  sounded  by  an  imaginative 
philosophy. 

In  bringing  this  lecture  to  a  close,  let  me  revert  to  a 
reflection  previously  presented : — that  a  prime  purpose  of 
every  one  who  thoughtfully  seeks  to  develop  the  faculties 
with  which  he  is  gifted  should  be  to  give  to  those  facul- 
ties their  due  proportionate  cultivation.  Life  is  made 
up  of  an  almost  infinite  variety  of  demands  on  the  human 
character, — the  thousand  minute  incidents  of  daily  occur- 
rence, the  weightier  trusts  from  which  no  one  can  isolate 
himself,  and  those  responsibilities  which,  beginning  here, 
will  have  their  event  beyond  all  time.  A  great  error  of 
human  existence  is  devotion  to  one  set  of  duties  at  the 
expense  of  others, — the  partial  formation  of  character, 
the  culture  of  some  faculties,  and  the  wilful  or  thought-, 
less  abandonment  of  others. 

Let  them  be  all  present  in  a  just  subordination,  with- 
out  prostrating  the  other   intellectual  powers.     I  have 


78  LECTURE     SECOND. 


endeavoured  to  assert  the  majesty  of  the  imagination, 
thus  claiming  only 

"That  the  king  may  enjoy  his  own." 

The  world  is  swayed  by  two  principles  antagonistic  when 
divorced, — the  spirit  of  contemplation,  hermit-like  seek- 
ing a  retreat,  and,  what  is  more  in  the  ascendant,  the  spirit 
of  action,  hurrying  into  the  thoroughfares  of  society,  and 
restless,  wretched,  and  helpless  in  any  chance  moment  of 
reluctant  solitude.  The  temptation  to  which  the  mere  man 
of  letters  is  exposed  is  the  disposition  to  withdraw  from  the 
active  life  in  which,  in  common  with  his  fellow-men,  his 
lot  is  cast,  into  the  cloister  of  his  ideal  world.  I  have  had 
occasion  to  speak  earnestly  on  the  importance  of  literary 
cultivation;  but  I  desire  a  condemnation  equally  earnest 
of  the  exaggeration  of  that  importance  at  the  cost  of 
other  duties,  that  pedantry  which  leads  into  the  exclusive 
and  narrow-spirited  error  of  making  literature  the  standard 
by  which  all  things  are  to  be  measured.  There  is,  bearing 
on  this  subject,  a  beautiful  incident  in  the  biography  of  Sir 
Walter  Scott,  to  whom  a  young  friend  chanced  to  make  a 
remark  conveying  the  impression  of  a  suspicion  of  poets 
and  novelists  being  accustomed  to  look  at  life  and  the 
world  only  as  the  materials  for  art.  A  soft  and  pensive 
shade  came  over  Scott's  face  as  he  said,  "I  fear  you  have 
some  very  young  ideas  in  your  head.  Are  you  not  too  apt 
to  measure  things  by  some  reference  to  literature, — to  dis- 
believe that  anybody  can  be  worth  much  care  who  has  no 
knowledge  of  that  sort  of  thing, — a  taste  for  it?  God 
help  us  I  what  a  poor  world  this  would  be  if  that  were 
the  true  doctrine !  I  have  read  books  enough,  and  observed 
and  conversed  with  enough  of  eminent  and  splendidly- 


SIK    PHILIP    PYDXEY.  79 


cultivated  minds  too,  in  niy  time;  but,  I  assure  you,  I  have 
heard  higher  sentiments  from  the  lips  of  poor  uneducated 
men  and  women,  when  exerting  the  spirit  of  severe  yet 
gentle  heroism  under  difficulties  and  afflictions,  or  speak- 
ing their  simple  thoughts  as  to  circumstances  in  the  lot 
of  friends  and  neighbours,  than  I  ever  yet  met  with  out 
of  the  pages  of  the  Bible.  We  shall  never  learn  to  feel 
and  respect  our  real  calling  and  destiny  unless  we  hav0 
taught  ourselves  to  consider  every  thing  as  moonshine^ 
compared  with  the  education  of  the  heart." 

(The  most  accomplished  condition  of  humanity  is  that 
in  which  habits  of  contemplation  and  of  action  exist  in 
harmony?}  The  noblest  eulogy  was  pronounced  on  the 
celebrated  Sir  Philip  Sydney,  by  his  philosophic  friend 
and  biographer,  when  he  said  of  him,  "  He  was  the  exact 
image  of  quiet  and  action,  happily  united  in  him  and 
seldom  well  divided  in  any."  The  equal  cultivation  of 
each  spiritual  gift  that  is  bestowed  on  us  is  that  true  idea 
of  education  set  forth  by  Lord  Bacon  in  a  passage  full  of 
a  wise  imagination,  closing  his  enumeration  of  the  obstacles 
to  the  advancement  of  learning,  and  which  in  conclusion 
I  desire  to  quote : — 

"The  greatest  error  is  the  mistaking  or  misplacing  the 
last  or  furthest  end  of  knowledge;  for  men  have  entered 
into  a  desire  of  learning  and  knowledge,  sometimes  upon 
natural  curiosity  and  inquisitive  appetite,  sometimes  to 
entertain  their  minds  with  variety  and  delight,  sometimes 
for  ornament  and  reputation,  and  sometimes  to  enable 
them  to  victory  of  wit  and  contradiction,  and  most  times 
for  lucre  and  profession,  and  seldom  sincerely  to  give  a 
true  account  of  their  gift  of  reason,  to  the  benefit  and 
use  of  men;  as  if  there  were  sought  in  knowledge  a 


80  LECTURE    SECOND. 


couch  whereupon  to  rest  a  searching  and  restless  spirit,  or 
a  terrace  for  a  wandering  and  variable  mind  to  walk  up 
and  down  with  a  fair  prospect,  or  a  tower  of  state  for 
a  proud  mind  to  raise  itself  upon,  or  a  fort  or  command- 
ing ground  for  strife  and  contention,  or  a  shop  for  profit 
or  sale,  and  not  a  rich  storehouse  for  the  glory  of  the 
Creator  and  the  relief  of  man's  estate." 


LECTURE  THIRD. 

Chanter. 

The  dawn  of  English  Poesy — Difficulties  of  describing  it — Obsolete 
language — Chaucer  the  father  of  English  Poetry — Latin  Poetry — 
Revival  of  Learning — English  Language — Its  Transition — Statutes 
of  Edward  the  Third — Gower — Age  of  Chivalry — Invasion  of  France 
— Cressy  and  Poitiers— The  Black  Prince — The  Church — Wiclif— 
Chaucer's  birth,  A.D.  1328 — Friendship  with  Gower — Taste  for  natu- 
ral scenery — The  Flower  and  the  Leaf — Burns's  Daisy — Romaunt 
of  the  Rose — Canterbury  Tales — Its  outline — His  respect  for  the 
female  sex — Chaucer's  influence  on  the  English  language — "The 
Well  of  English  undefiled" — His  versification — His  death,  A.D.  1400. 

THE  era  of  English  poetry  may  be  described  as  a  period 
of  about  five  hundred  years.  At  the  remote  point  of  time 
forming  the  distant  boundary  of  those  five  centuries  stands 
a  name  illustrious  enough  to  justify  the  usage  of  placing 
it  at  the  head  of  the  English  poets  when  they  are  con- 
sidered chronologically.  A  great  living  poet  closes  the 
catalogue.*  It  is  a  consideration  of  some  interest  that 
the  calendar  which  opens  so  nobly  with  the  name  of 
Chaucer  closes  worthily  in  our  day  with  that  of  Words- 
worth. It  is  a  gratification  to  the  literary  student  to 
know  that,  when  he  seeks  acquaintance  with  the  earliest 
English  poets,  he  will  encounter,  not  the  feeble  and  dull 
productions  of  rudeness  and  mediocrity,  but  works  belong- 
ing to  the  higher  order  of  the  art,  and  also  that,  when 

*  In  1841,  Wordsworth  was  living. 

VOL.  I.  6  81 


82  LECTURETIIIUD. 


he  brings  down  the  study  to  the  literature  of  the  present 
time,  he  will  not  have  occasion  to  mourn  over  the  degeneracy 
of  modern  inspiration.  Upon  each  frontier  of  those  five 
hundred  years  stands  the  landmark  of  high  poetic  genius. 
It  is  also  worthy  of  remark  that  the  history  of  EnglisL 
poetry  is  contemporaneous  with  that  of  the  language. 
Almost  as  soon  as  the  language  spoken  in  England 
assumed  a  form  which  has  continued  intelligible  to  later 
generations,  there  appeared  a  poet  of  the  first  rank,  who 
made  it  the  voice  of  his  inspiration.  In  the  primitive 
age  of  English  literature  there  is  one  (and  but  one)  name 
of  distinguished  eminence.  If,  therefore,  our  subject  is 
to  be  treated  with  regard  to  historical  considerations,  there 
cannot  be  a  moment's  hesitation  as  to  the  period  when  it 
is  to  be  taken  up. 

The  arrangement  of  this  course  of  lectures  is  attended, 
in  this  particular,  with  a  disadvantage  to  which  it  is  pro- 
per to  advert,  though  I  am  not  aware  that  it  can  be 
avoided  except  by  the  sacrifice  of  more  important  con- 
siderations. The  portion  of  literature  in  which  any 
reader  is  naturally  first  interested  is  that  which  is  acces- 
sible in  the  fresh  and  familiar  forms  of  contemporaneous 
language;  and  it  is  only  as  the  taste  is  invigorated  and 
the  knowledge  of  former  ages  increased  that  he  carries 
his  reading  into  earlier  literature,  no  longer  displeased  or 
dismayed  by  antiquated  or  obsolete  dialects.  This  is  pro- 
bably the  course  of  every  student  in  his  individual 
investigations  as  he  follows  the  guidance  of  his  own  taste. 
His  course  is  against  the  stream  of  time.  To  obey  the 
same  instinct  in  presenting  the  subject  to  your  considera- 
tion would  have  enabled  me  better  to  conciliate  your 
attention  than,  I  fear,  I  can  hope  to  ob  in  treating  the 


THE.    DAWN    OF    ENGLISH    POETRY. 


old  English  poetry.  The  advantage  of  beginning  the 
course  with  modern  poetry  and  passing  by  a  retrograde 
movement  into  its  previous  eras  was  not  to  be  relinquished 
without  reflection;  but,  at  the  same  time,  such  a  method 
would  have  involved  an  abandonment  of  the  advantages 
arising  from  giving  to  the  subject  somewhat  of  an  histori- 
cal form.  I  have  therefore  concluded  rather  to  encounter 
the  risk  and  inconveniences  alluded  to,  in  order  to  trace 
the  march  of  the  English  Muse,  and,  collaterally,  the  rise 
and  progress  of  the  English  language. 

I  shall  not  therefore  struggle  against  the  tide  of  time, 
though  in  moving  with  it,  and  setting  out  at  a  period 
when  the  language  was  in  many  respects  not  the  English 
language  now  spoken,  we  must  hold  converse  with  extinct 
dialects, — words  and  forms  of  expression  which  have 
yielded  to  the  same  power  of  death  which  long  ago  con- 
quered the  lips  that  uttered  them.  It  is  a  weary  thing, 
no  doubt,  communing  with  our  native  language  through 
the  medium  of  dictionaries  and  glossaries,  to  meet,  as 
it  were,  the  curse  of  Babel  upon  our  own  hearth.  It  is 
painful  to  hear  the  dear  voice  of  our  mother-tongue  like 
the  voice  of  a  stranger  and  an  alien.  The  relation  ia 
which  Chaucer  stands  to  succeeding  poets  is  that  of  an 
ancestor  to  a  long  lineage  of  descendants.  "  The  line  of 
English  poets,"  says  Mr.  Southey,  "  begins  with  him,  as 
that  of  English  kings  with  William  the  Conqueror ;  and, 
if  the  change  introduced  by  him  was  not  so  great,  his 
title  is  better.  Kings  there  were  before  the  Conquest, 
and  of  great  and  glorious  memory  too.  But  the  poets 
before  Chaucer  are  like  the  heroes  before  Agamemnon: 
even  of  those  whose  works  have  escaped  oblivion  the 
names  of  most  have  perished."  "The  Father  of  English 


84  LECTURE    THIRD. 


Poetry"  "Tlie  Morning  Star,"  are  the  metaphorical  phrases 
so  tritely  associated  with  Chaucer's  name  as  to  show  the 
general  sentiment  respecting  him.  It  could  scarcely 
have  happened  that  this  kind  of  rank  would  have  been 
assigned  to  an  author  of  secondary  merit.  But  it  should 
be  distinctly  understood  that  his  fame  rests  not  only 
upon  the  fact  of  his  being  the  acknowledged  father  of 
English  poetry,  but  as  one  of  our  greatest  poets. 

Before  entering  on  the  question  of  his  merits,  it  is  pro- 
per to  examine  his  position  relatively  to  the  literature  of 
Europe  generally  and  then  to  the  language  of  England. 
The  fourteenth  century, — the  period  from  the  year  1300  to 
1400, — it  will  be  remembered,  was  the  first  century  of  the 
rising  literature  of  Europe.  The  Latin  language,  which 
had  long  since  ceased  to  be  a  living,  colloquial  language, 
had  not  fallen  into  the  entire  obsoleteness  of  a  dead  lan- 
guage ;  for  it  continued  to  be  the  medium  of  communica- 
tion for  the  learned  community  of  all  Europe.  But  in 
the  time  just  alluded  to — the  latter  Middle  Ages — the  ver- 
nacular tongues  in  the  respective  countries  were  begin- 
ning to  assume  a  distinctive  form,  and  thus  to  furnish  to 
the  author  an  instrument  by  which  he  could  not  only 
move  the  monastic  intellect  of  the  scholar,  but  arouse  the 
neglected  faculties  of  all  to  whom  his  writings  could  be 
made  accessible  in  times  when  printing  had  not  yet  super- 
seded the  toilsome  and  limited  labours  of  the  copyist. 
In  the  history  of  modern  European  literature  the  fore- 
most great  name  is  that  of  Dante,  and  in  immediate 
succession  is  that  of  Petrarch.  These  were  men  of  the 
fourteenth  century ;  and  I  have  alluded  to  them  for  the 
purpose  of  showing  that  the  little  island  we  trace  our  his- 
tory from  was  not  far  behind  old  Italy  in  the  intellectual 


THE    ENGLISH    LANGUAGE.  85 


career.  When  poetic  genius,  after  its  slumber  of  more 
than  a  thousand  years,  began  to  breathe  again  beneath  the 
genial  atmosphere  of  the  South,  the  strain  was  quickly 
caught  by  the  cold  nations  of  the  North,  and  the  inspiration 
of  the  Muse  found  a  fit  tone  in  words  which  before  were 
known  only  as  the  rude  and  uncouth  dialect  of  barbarism. 
Between  the  death  of  Dante  and  the  birth  of  Chaucer 
here  was  an  interval  of  a  very  few  years.  With  the 
iccond  great  poet,  Petrarch,  the  life  of  Chaucer  was  con- 
emporary.  All  belonging  to  the  fourteenth  century, 
it  will  be  perceived  that  the  rise  of  English  poetry  was 
coincident  with  the  early  era  of  the  modern  literature  of 
Europe.  The  ancestral  position  of  Chaucer  in  the  annals 
of  our  poetry  makes  it  important  to  fix  in  the  mind  a  dis- 
tinct idea  of  the  period  of  time  in  which  he  flourished. 
This  may  readily  be  done  by  the  recollection  that  he  died, 
at  an  advanced  age,  in  the  year  1400, — the  border-year 
of  two  centuries.  He  was  an  author  during  the  last  half 
of  the  fourteenth  century. 

Fixing  the  date  of  Chaucer's  time,  let  us  next  briefly 
examine  the  condition  of  the  language  of  his  nation. 
For  the  information  of  those  whose  attention  has  not 
been  drawn  to  the  subject,  it  may  be  proper  to  state  that 
the  English  language  is  a  composite  language,  the  chief 
elements  being  the  Saxon  and  the  Norman.  It  is  ex- 
tremely difficult — perhaps  impossible — to  say  when  the 
English  language  had  its  beginning,  because  the  trans- 
formation from  the  Anglo-Saxon  was  a  series  of  slow  and 
gradual  changes.  What  was  the  nature  of  those  changes 
would  be  an  inquiry  leading  me  away  from  the  present 
subject  and  too  important  to  be  disposed  of  cursorily. 
The  Norman  or  French  dialect  was  a  great  tributary  to 


86  LECTURE    THIRD. 


the  main  current  of  Saxon  words,  and  the  two  fetreams 
which  long  flowed  in  separate  channels  were  at  length 
flowing  together.  The  earliest  specimens  of  English 
writing,  as  distinguished  from  the  more  ancient  Anglo- 
Saxon,  belong  to  the  latter  part  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, not  long  before  the  year  1300;  but  they  show  a 
rude  and  imperfect  condition  of  language.  The  process 
of  formation  was  still  going  on;  and  it  was  not  till  the 
time  of  Chaucer  that  the  language  was  saturated  with 
the  infusion  of  French  it  was  capable  of  receiving.  It 
must  be  borne  in  mind  that  changes  in  written  language 
would  not  be  concurrent  with  changes  in  spoken  lan- 
guage. For  some  two  or  three  centuries  the  French  lan- 
guage was  spoken  by  the  higher  classes  of  society  in 
England,  until  it  was  gradually  superseded  by  the  new 
dialect,  in  which  the  language  of  the  Norman  conquerors 
was  combined  with  the  native  speech  of  the  Saxons.  In 
all  that  was  written  the  change  came  on  more  slowly : — 
the  statutes  of  the  realm, — the  pleas  in  courts  of  jus- 
tice,—  the  proceedings  of  various  tribunals, —  epistolary 
correspondence,  even  of  a  private  nature, — were  for  a  time 
in  Latin,  and  afterward,  and  still  longer,  in  French. 
Now,  after  the  elements  of  the  English  language  had,  by 
means  of  colloquial  use,  begun  to  acquire  a  consistency 
and  a  form,  it  had  yet  to  acquire  a  literary  existence. 
And  how  was  this  to  be  gained?  In  the  reign  of 
Edward  III.,  it  was  enacted  by  Parliament  that  all 
pleas  in  the  courts  of  justice  should  be  pleaded  and 
adjudged  in  English  instead  of  French;  and  yet,  a  hun- 
dred years  after,  we  are  told  that  the  provision  was  only 
partially  enforced.  If  legislation  was  too  feeble  to  control 
the  form  in  which  judicial  and  technical  thought  was  to 


TRANSITION'S    OF    THE    LANGUAGE.  87 


be  clotted,  nothing  could  be  expected  from  it  in  modify- 
ing or  changing  the  mould  of  literature.  No;  it  was  not 
for  the  decree  of  legislation  or  philosophy  to  work  out 
this  revolution, — to  raise  the  colloquial  dialect,  the 
familiar  forms  of  speech,  to  the  dignity  of  the  learned 
idiom  in  which  men  pronounced  the  thoughts  they 
desired  to  perpetuate  in  writing, — to  give  honour  to  the 
vulgar  English, — to  set  the  vernacular  speech  (long  lite- 
rally the  dialect  of  slaves)  as  high  as  the  clerkly  Latin 
and  the  royal,  aristocratic  French  of  the  Norman  nobility. 
I  The  change  was  to  be  wrought  by  the  magic  influence 
of  the  poet}  The  poet,  addressing  himself  to  the  heart 
of  the  people,  needs  the  people's  own  speech.  So  it  is 
in  all  languages ;  their  hidden  powers  are  first  disclosed 
by  the  poets;  for  their  theme  is  the  knowledge  which 
should  be  open  unto  all.  Telling,  in  measured  strains,  of 
the  passions  and  the  feelings  common  to  humanity,  they 
lay  aside  the  learned  dialect,  secret  to  all  but  the  initi- 
ated, and  reveal  the  unknown  powers  of  common  speech, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  refine  and  improve  it.  The  lite- 
rary existence  of  all  languages  has  its  date,  therefore, 
with  their  early  poetry.  The  poet  who  contributed  to  this 
influence  in  a  larger  degree  than  any  other  was,  un- 
questionably, Geoffrey  Chaucer.  He  did  not,  however, 
stand  alone;  and  the  measure  of  his  genius  may  be  taken 
not  only  by  a  positive  standard,  but  by  comparison  with 
his  contemporaries,  among  whom  stands  Gower,  the 
second  in  point  of  merit  of  the  poets  of  the  age  of 
Edward  III.  The  reign  of  that  ambitious  and  warlike 
prince  was  signalized  not  less  by  the  glory  of  foreign 
conquests  in  his  wars  for  the  crown  of  France  than  by 
the  intellectual  activity  and  the  outbreak  of  imagination 


S8  LECTURE    TIIIKD. 


which  distinguished  its  literature.  I  shall  have  occasion 
hereafter  to  show  that,  as  in  this  first  era  of  English 
poetry,  each  brilliant  period  that  followed  was  also  distin- 
guished for  its  national  importance  in  a  political  point 
of  view.  It  may  perhaps  impress  the  consideration  to 
allude  to  these  in  anticipation.  After  the  age  of  Ed- 
ward III.  the  next  great  literary  era  was  the  age  of 
Queen  Elizabeth,  then  of  the  Commonwealth,  then  of 
Queen  Anne,  and  then  the  late  period  in  which  England 
was  again,  as  in  the  first  period,  summoning  all  its  ener- 
gies in  the  strife  with  France.  As  far  as  I  may  be  justi- 
fied in  drawing  a  general  principle  from  the  induction,  it 
would  seem  that  an  exalted  state  of  national  feeling  was 
the  atmosphere  best  fitted  to  sustain  the  poetic  spirit. 
During  the  period  I  am  treating  of,  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
English  people  had  been  wrought  to  its  highest  pitch : 
they  had  aimed  to  achieve  the  vast  ambition  of  their 
king  to  seize  the  diadem  of  France;  and  never  did  the 
pulse  of  the  nation  beat  higher  than  when  victory 
perched  upon  their  banners  on  the  plains  of  Cressy  and 
of  Poitiers.  The  manners  and  habits  of  the  Middle 
Ages  were  still  untouched  by  the  changes  which  after- 
ward distinguished  that  period  of  European  history  from 
more  modern  times.  The  spirit  of  chivalry  was  in  its 
vigour,  giving  life  to  institutions  and  customs  which 
have  now  long  been  obsolete  and  extinct.  The  fifty 
years  during  which  Edward  occupied  the  throne  make 
the  most  brilliant  half-century  iu  the  annals  of  England. 
The  strong  arm  of  the  king  had  shaken  the  monarchy 
of  France  to  its  centre:  and  when  that  hand  becran  to 

*  O 

stiffen  with  age  the  sword  was  wielded  by  his  illustrious 
son, — the  bright  pattern  to  the  nobles  who  formed  his 


THE    BLACK    PRINCE  — THE    CIIUUCII. 


court  and  emulated  the  character  portrayed  in  the  lines 
of  Shakspeare: — 

"In  war  was  never  lion  raged  so  fierce, 
In  peace  was  never  gentle  lamb  more  mild, 
Than  was  that  young  and  princely  gentleman. 
When  ho  frowned,  it  was  against  the  French, 
And  not  against  his  friends :  his  noble  hand 
Did  win  what  ho  did  spend,  and  spent  not  that 
Which  his  triumphant  father's  hand  had  won." 

It  would  not  be  easy  to  point  to  any  period  when  the 
adventurous  spirit  of  the  people  was  more  elevated  by 
national  enthusiasm.  That  remarkable  writer  whose  wit 
could  touch  without  profaning  a  serious  subject,  the 
church-historian,  Fuller,  said  of  the  long-continued  war 
in  France  "  that  it  made  the  English  nation  exceeding 
proud  and  exceeding  poor."  But  the  chivalry  of  Eng- 
land, stimulated  by  the  victories  of  Cressy  and  Poitiers, 
rested  not  content  with  those  laurels.  Following  the 
banner  of  their  prince,  they  penetrated  into  the  monarchy 
of  Castile;  and,  doubtless,  when  the  war-worn  soldier 
came  home  again,  he  brought  with  him  legends  ga- 
thered from  Iberian  and  Moorish  romances  to  mingle 
with  the  popular  literature  of  his  own  country. 

The  times  of  Chaucer  were  a  stirring  period  in  the 
annals  of  the  Church.  The  first  great  Reformer  was  his 
contemporary.  It  is  not  necessary,  even  were  it  appro- 
priate, for  me  to  say  more  on  this  point  than  that  it  was 
then  that  the  voice  of  Wiclif  was  raised  against  Papal 
domination.  The  slumbering  sentiments  of  ecclesiastical 
disaffection  were  widely  agitated.  The  veil  between  the 
oracle  of  God  and  the  hearts  of  the  people  was  torn 
away;  for  the  Bible  was  brought  from  the  sepulchres 


90  LECTURE    THIRD. 


of  a  dead  language  and  made  a  living  English  book. 
Not  only  was  there  the  agitation  of  war  and  religious  con- 
troversy, but  there  was,  moreover,  civil  convulsion, — the 
first  struggle  of  an  oppressed  peasantry  nerved  with  the 
hope  of  freedom,  when  sixty  thousand  SERFS,  bursting 
their  vassalage,  were  for  a  brief  season  masters  of  the 
metropolis.  I  allude  to  these  subjects  very  cursorily;  but 
the  student  of  literature  must  reflect  on  the  leading  cha- 
racteristics of  each  literary  epoch, — of  no  one  more  than 
this  of  the  early  English  poetry.  It  is  thus  that  we  learn 
the  influences  which  modify  and  often  control  the  poet's 
inspirations,  and  which  fashion  the  nation's  heart  to 
which  those  inspirations  are  addressed. 

Geoffrey  Chaucer  was  born  in  the  year  1328,  at  Lon- 
don. He  was  a  man  of  gentle  birth.  His  education 
befitted  his  birth,  and  his  lot  was  cast  in  noble  and 
kingly  company.  His  long  life  was  spent  not  in  mon- 
astic or  clerkly  seclusion,  but  in  the  busy  public  life  of 
two  animated  reigns.  The  royal  favour  of  Edward  III. 
and  Richard  II.  was  bestowed  on  him;  and  official  records 
perpetuate  the  fact  of  his  appointment  to  several  stations, 
the  precise  nature  of  which  cannot  well  be  ascertained 
after  the  lapse  of  ages,  with  the  exception  of  the  one  in 
which  he  was  associated  in  an  embassy  to  the  court  of 
France,  charged  with  the  important  and  delicate  diplomacy 
of  negotiating  a  marriage  between  the  young  Prince  of 
Wales  and  a  daughter  of  the  French  monarch, — probably 
to  confirm  that  peace  which  had  for  a  time  closed  the 
long  war  between  the  two  kingdoms.  There  is  a  bio- 
graphy of  Chaucer,  written  by  the  novelist  Godwin,  which 
fills  four  well-sized  octavo  volumes;  and  yet  the  authentic 
facts  of  his  life  may  be  stated  in  less  than  that  number  of 


CHAUCER'S    LIFE.  91 


pages.  Very  little  is  known  of  him,  and  that  little  has 
less  connection  with  his  literary  character.  It  would,  in 
truth,  be  a  strange  thing  if  memorials  had  been  pre- 
served of  any  man  of  letters,  no  matter  how  worthy,  who 
lived  in  the  early  ages  of  a  nation's  literature.  That 
kind  of  merit  was  yet  but  imperfectly  appreciated ;  and, 
besides,  let  it  be  remembered  that  Chaucer  flourished 
before  the  invention  of  printing,  and  his  labours  were 
therefore  only  known  by  the  more  limited  and  uncertain 
process  of  manuscript.  A  few  isolated  particulars, 
chance-recorded,  are  all  that  can  be  reasonably  looked 
for  touching  the  lives  of  the  early  English  poets.  There 
is  often  a  disposition  to  lay  hold  of  these  few  incidents, 
and  from  them,  by  means  of  conjecture,  sometimes  plausi- 
ble, sometimes  preposterous,  and  always  fantastic,  to  spin 
out  a  theory  of  the  unknown  life.  Of  the  few  authentic 
events  of  Chaucer's  life  I  have  stated  all  I  mean  to 
state, —  all  that  appears  to  be  of  interest.  As  subserving 
the  purposes  of  criticism,  I  can  attach  little  value  to  the 
fact  of  his  having,  during  one  period  of  his  life,  held  an 
office  connected  with  the  collection  of  customs  in  the  port 
of  London,  with  an  injunction  in  the  patent  of  his  office : — 
"That  the  said  Geoffrey  write  with  his  own  hands  his 
rolls  touching  the  said  office,  and  continually  reside  there, 
and  do  and  execute  all  things  pertaining  to  said  office  in 
his  own  proper  person  and  not  by  a  substitute;"  for, 
whatever  conclusion  one  might  arrive  at,  whether  that 
such  an  office  with  such  a  condition  of  tenure  was  ad- 
verse to  the  freedom  of  song  or  whether  it  was  favourable, 
or,  as  is  most  probable,  inoperative  for  either  good  or 
evil,  the  opinion  would  be  no  more  than  empty  hypo- 
thesis. It  is,  however,  of  interest  to*  know  that  Chaucer 


92  LECTURE    THIRD. 


was  not  only  a  scholar  but  a  gentleman  and  a  courtier; 
not  because  of  any  narrow  considerations  of  courtly 
patronage,  but  because  his  intercourse  with  the  world  was 
calculated  to  give  his  poetry  a  more  enlarged  character 
than  commonly  prevailed.  The  literature  of  the  Middle 
Ages  was  cast  in  scholastic  moulds.  The  favourite  form 
of  imaginative  composition  was  allegory,  varied  only  by 
classical  story  or  romances  devoted  to  the  celebration  of 
supernatural  heroes  and  their  monstrous  dangers  and 
exploits.  In  all  this  there  was  a  weary  repetition  of 
commonplaces,  and,  in  a  word,  a  want  of  the  life  of 
poetry.  What  seemed  therefore  needed  to  give  the 
first  great  impulse  to  English  poetry  was  the  appearance 
of  some  one  not  only  endowed  with  poetic  genius  and  an 
intellect  cultivated  with  the  best  scholarship  of  the  age, 
but  also  adding  to  the  love  of  books  familiarity  with  the 
human  heart  gained  by  intercourse  with  men  in  the  arena 
of  actual  life.  Hence  it  is  that  I  have  attached  importance 
to  Chaucer's  courtly  and  public  career.  He  brought  the 
English  Muse  from  cloistered  seclusion  forth  into  the  light 
of  open  day,  and,  no  longer  enveloping  her  in  the  veil  of 
antiquity,  he  displayed  her  in  the  native  freshness  of  her 
youth.  In  these  respects  the  contrast  between  Chaucer  and 
his  most  eminent  contemporary,  the  poet  Grower,  is  strongly 
marked.  The  chief  production  of  Gower,  bearing  the 
Latin  title  Confessio  Amantis,  is  a  voluminous  didactic 
poem,  composed  of  the  extinct  mythology  of  ancient 
paganism  quaintly  intermingled  with  narratives  from  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures  and  the  legends  of  Greek  and  Koman 
story, —  the  adventures  of  Jupiter  and  Hercules,  of  Gideon 
and  Job,  of  Medea  and  Lucretia.  It  consequently  bears, 
apart  from  its  language,  the  stamp  of  no  particular  time 


QUALITY    OF    CHAUCER'S    POETUY. 


or  country,  and  might  as  appropriately  have  belonged  to 
any  other  century  as  to  its  own. 

But  not  so  with  Chaucer,  whose  poetry,  while  true  to 
nature  and  therefore  to  all  ages  and  climes,  shows  the 
impress  of  England  and  the  fourteenth  century.  With 
his  bodily  vision,  and  with  that  spiritual  eyesight, —  the 
imagination, —  he  looked  upon  the  world  in  which  he 
lived  and  on  the  men  in  whose  thronged  company  he 
moved;  and  hence  - 

"  Old  England's  fathers  lire  in  Chaucer's  lay 
As  if  they  ne'er  had  died.     lie  grouped  and  drew 
Their  likeness  with  a  spirit  of  life  so  gay 
That  still  they  live  and  breathe,  in  fancy's  view, 
Fresh  beings  fraught  with  time's  imperishable  hue." 

One  great  proof  of  the  genius  of  Chaucer  and  his 
superiority  over  his  contemporaries  is  to  be  traced  in 
this: — that  he  gave  to  his  poetry  a  deeper* and  stronger 
sympathy  with  man's  actual  life.  Not  content  with  the 
conventional  topics  of  the  poetry  of  the  Middle  Ages,  he 
followed  the  guidance  of  his  own  inspirations  and  found 
nature.  When  we  find  him  portraying  his  countrymen 
such  'as  he  saw  them  in  the  streets  of  London,  and 
mingling  these  vivid  but  homely  descriptions  with  loftier 
and  more  romantic  themes,  we  trace  the  bent  as  well  as 
the  vigour  of  his  genius,  disdaining  to  confine  the  free- 
dom of  its  movement  to  the  beaten  track  of  his  metrical 
predecessors. 

It  is  proof  of  the  native  energy  of  Chaucer's  genius 
that,  not  content  with  transmitted  inspiration,  he  sought 
the  elements  of  poetry  in  its  primal  sources.  It  was 
ruuch;  in  an  age  when  the  poets  were  apt  to  fill  their  urns 


94  LECTURE    THIRD. 


chiefly  from  the  classical  aqueducts  of  antiquity,  that  one 
should  seek  the  limpid  fountain  as  it  burst  from  the  native 
rock  or  rose  noiselessly  in  the  bosom  of  the  green  earth. 
There  are,  scattered  through  the  poems  of  Chaucer, 
allusions  to  traits  of  his  own  character  and  personal  habits. 
The  autobiographical  passages  in  .the  writings  of  eminent 
men  are  those  which  are  always  seized  on  with  avidity; 
filid  in  the  case  of  our  ancient  poet  they  are  singularly 
complete.  Apart,  however,  from  these  .direct  descriptions, 
there  would  be  no  difficulty  in  fashioning  our  imaginings 
of  his  personal  character.  He  was  a  student,  a  man  of 
books, — manuscript  books,  let  it  be  remembered;  for  the 
art  of  printing  came  slowly  on  near  a  hundred  years  later. 
The  habitual  downcast  tendency  of  his  looks  was  a  trait 
perpetuated  in  his  portrait,  and  at  once  an  effect  and  a 
sign  of  literary  application  and  of  the  reflective  cast  of 
his  mind.  Conscious  of  this  habit,  he  puts  a  pleasant 
allusion  to  it* into  the  mouth  of  one  of  his  imaginary 
companions : — 

"  '"What  man  art  thou,'  quoth  he, 
'  That  lookest  as  if  thou  would'st  find  a  hare  ? 
Forever  on  the  ground  I  see  thee  stare.' " 

But,  while  Chaucer  knew  well,  as  we  learn  from  his  own 
words,  the  student's  aching  brow  and  sight  dimmed  by 
poring  on  the  written  page,  he  loved,  too,  with  as  deep 
a  love,  the  fairer  and  more  glorious  book  of  nature. 
Largely  did  he  share  (that  element  of  all  great  poetic 
genius, — a  passion  for  the  outward  world,  that  which  is 
commonly  called  nature, —  a  passion  springing  from  a 
consciousness  of  its  influence  on  the  spiritual  part  of  our 
being.:  He  was  endowed  with  too  capacious  an  intel- 


TASTE    FOB    NATURAL    SCENERY.  95 


lect  not  to  know  that  the  soul  of  man  is  fitted  to  the  ex- 
ternal world,  and  that  its  education  conies  not  from  books 
alone.  The  undying  soul  which  animates  each  human 
being  was  breathed  by  the  Creator  into  a  material  body, 
— a  union  as  mysterious  as  death  which  separates  it; 
and  who,  without  impeachment  of  divine  Wisdom,  can 
question  that  agencies  innumerable,  felt  by  the  physical 
frame,  are  transmitted  to  the  spirit  in  its  secret  dwelling? 
It  is  not  the  providence  of  God  to  bestow  such  impulses 
in  vain : — the  bright  colours  and  the  fresh  airs  of  spring, 
the  sere  and  death-foretelling  hues  of  autumn,  the 
dirge-like  tones  of  the  voice  of  winter,  are  meant  to 
reach,  beyond  the  senses,  to  the  spirit  which  is  within. 
If  there  were  times  when  Chaucer,  with  a  student's 
intensity,  hung  over  pages  on  which  the  wisdom  of  other 
days  was  recorded,  there  were  also  times  when  his  heart 
beat  high  with  the  fervid  enthusiasm  which  glows  with 
the  love  of  nature,  partaking  the  emotion  uttered  by  a 
later  poet : — 

"  One  impulse  from  a  vernal  wood 
Shall  teach  you  more  of  man — 
Of  moral  evil  and  of  good — 
Than  all  the  sages  can." 

The  poetry  of  Chaucer  abounds  with  passages  of  great 
beauty  and — what  is  essential  to  all — true  descriptive 
poetry,  manifesting  the  freshness  and  truth  of  actual  ob- 
servation, shown  not  so  much  in  mere  precision  of  detail 
as  in  the  animation  which  is  sure  to  be  wanting  in  all 
secondary  description.  Perhaps  I  can  cite  few  passages 
more  free  from  obsolete  phraseology  than  the  brilliant 
lines  containing  one  of  his  descriptions  of  morning : — 


96  LECTURE     THIRD. 


"  The  busy  lark,  the  messenger  of  day, 
Saluteth  in  her  song  the  morning  grey; 
And  fiery  Phoebus  riseth  up  so  bright, 
That  all  the  orient  laugheth  at  the  sight, 
And  with  his  streames  drieth  in  the  greves 
The  silver  droppes  hanging  on  the  leves." 

It  would  be  harsh  criticism  to  object  to  the  sun  being 
designated  by  the  cold  mythological  title ;  for  it  is  only 
very  recent  poets  that  have  learned  to  lay  aside  that 
fashion  of  speech.  This  fault — excusable  in  an  early 
writer  —  should  not  disparage  a  description  which  fairly 
sparkles  with  the  dew  of  morning. 

In  Chaucer's  love  of  nature  there  is  one  element  of 
it,  as  a  poetic  feeling,  in  which  may  be  traced  affinity 
between  the  earliest  and  the  latest  of  the  great  English 
poets.  I  refer  to  his  imaginative  moralizing  over  even 
the  humblest  flowers  that  deck  the  bosom  of  his  native 
ground, — not  an  incongruous  combination  of  botany  and 
poetry,  such  as  the  language  of  flowers  and  such  fan- 
tastic devices.  I  am  speaking  of  that  which  has  a  truer 
aim, — one  development  of  poetry's  chief  philosophy  in 
making  things  visible,  types  and  shadows  of  things 
invisible.  It  is  an  utterance  of  imagination  often 
scorned  by  intellectual  pride,  but  precious,  as  any  one 
may  feel  who  will  reflect  that  a  few  Bible-words  have 
made  the  lowly,  untoiling  lilies  dear  to  the  whole 
Christian  world.  Chaucer's  poem  of  the  "  Flower  and 
the  Leaf"  is  full  of  this  gentle  morality,  and  is  as  beau- 
tiful an  allegorical  pastoral  as  the  language  has  produced. 
It  was  a  tribute  to  that  modest  flower,  the  daisy.  After- 
wards the  flower,  honoured  by  the  early  bards,  enjoyed  no 
more  than,  now  and  then,  some  chauce  notice,  like  the 


BURXS'S    ADDRESS    TO   THE    DAISY.  87 


one  tender  word  for  it  from  the  lips  of  the  crazed 
Ophelia.  And  so  its  neglect  lasted  till,  about  fifty  years 
ago,  on  the  bleak  side  of  a  Scottish  hill,  a  sturdy  plough- 
man checked  his  plough;  for  in  the  mid-path  of  the 
furrow  there  was  looking  up  to  him  the  "  wee,"  modest, 
crimson-tipped  flower  of  a  mountain-daisy.  Within  the 
manly  bosom  of  that  ploughman  was  beating  the  heart 
of  EGBERT  BURXS;  and,  though  the  flower  was  soon 
crushed  beneath  the  ploughshare,  it  had  beamed  long 
enough  on  a  poet's  eye  to  inspire  the  most  touching 
strain  that  had  been  breathed  ever  since  the  days  of  old 
Chaucer : — 

"  Cold  blew  the  bitter  biting  north 
Upon  thy  early,  hnmble  birth; 
Yet  cheerfully  thou  glinted  forth 

Amid  the  storm, 
Scarce  reared  above  the  parent  earth 

Thy  tender  form. 

''  The  flaunting  flowers  our  gardens~yield 
High  sheltering  woods  and  wa's  maun  shield; 
But  thou,  beneath  the  random  bield 

Of  clod  or  stano, 
Adorns  the  histie  stibble-field, 

Unseen,  alane." 

The  flower  and  its  fate  called  up,  to  Burns's  fancy,  asso- 
ciations of  maiden  innocence  abused  and  ruin's  plough- 
share driving  over  the  short-lived  happiness  of  suffering 
merit;  but  this  article  of  the  poetic  creed,  neglected  for 
five  centuries,  has  been  reannounced  more  strongly  by  a 
later  voice : — 

"  Thanks  to  the  human  heart  by  which  we  live, — 
Thanks  to  its  tenderness,  its  joys,  and  fears,— 
To  me  the  nearest  flower  that  blows  can  give      •vntA/*v«»5"t 

Thoughts  that  do  often  lie  too  deep  for  tears." 
VOL.  i.  7 


98  LECTURE    THIRD. 

The  deepest  response  to  Chaucer's  imaginative  and 
thoughtful  love  of  nature's  humblest  forms  comes  from 
the  latest  of  his  great  successors,  who  has  thus  taken 
up  a  strain  that  had  been  hushed  for  near  five  hun- 
dred years, — a  strain  of  gratitude  as  well  as  of  poetry  to 
the  modest  flower,  as  the  origin  of  various  spiritual 
emotions  : — 

"A  hundred  times,  by  rock  or  bower, 
Ere  thus  I  have  lain  couched  an  hour, 
Have  I  derived  from  thee,  sweet  flower, 

Some  apprehension, 

Some  shady  love,  some  brief  delight, 

Some  memory  that  had  taken  flight, 

Some  chime  of  fancy,  wrong  or  right, 

Or  stray  invention. 

"  If  stately  passions  in  me  burn, 
And  one  chance  look  to  thee  should  turn, 
I  drink  out  of  an  humbler  urn 
A  lowlier  pleasure : — 
The  homely  sympathy  that  heeds 
The  common  life  our  nature  breeds, — 
A  wisdom  fitted  to  the  needs 
Of  hearts  at  leisure. 

"  And  all  day  long  I  number  yet, 
All  seasons  through,  another  debt, 
Which  I,  wherever  thou  art  met, 

To  thee  am  owing : 
An  instinct  call  it, — a  blind  sense, — 
A  happy,  genial  influence, 
Coming  one  knows  not  how,  nor  whence, 

Nor  whither  going. 

"  Child  of  the  year,  that  round  dost  run 
Thy  pleasant  course, — when  day's  begun. 
As  ready  to  salute  the  san 

As  lark  or  leveret, — 


ROMAUXT    OF    THE    ROSE.  99 


Thy  long-lost  praise  thou  shalt  regain, 
Nor  be  less  dear  to  future  men 
Than  in  old  time; — thou  not  in  vain 
Art  nature's  favourite." 

I  have  noticed  the  independence  of  Chaucer's  genius 
in  seeking  the  native  sources  of  poetic  inspiration ;  but, 
in  doing  so,  I  should  give  a  false  idea  of  his  productions 
if  I  left  the  impression  that  they  were  chiefly  of  his  own 
invention.  He  was  a  voluminous  poet;  so  much  so  that 
the  press  of  his  country  has  as  yet  furnished  no  worthy 
edition  of  his  entire  works.  During  the  greater  part 
of  his  life  his  literary  efforts  were  devoted  to  translating 
and  paraphrasing  the  poets  of  France  and  Italy  and  of 
ancient  Rome.  Of  these  works  the  most  elaborate  was 
the  " Romaunt  of  tlie  Rose"  a  version  of  the  French 
allegorical  and  romantic  poem  with  that  title,  and  the 
poem  of  "Troilus  and  Cressida,"  principally  imitated 
from  Boccaccio,  but  with  large  additions.  Dealing  with 
a  language  of  which  the  vocabulary  was  yet  unsettled 
and  the  metres  not  reduced  to  system,  Chaucer  was  thus 
gradually  invigorating  his  genius  for  the  chief  work  on 
which  his  fame  rests.  It  is  a  remark  of  Mr.  Ellis,  in  his 
excellent  "Specimens  of  the  Early  English  Poets,"  that  it 
may  be  doubted  whether  he  thought  himself  sufficiently 
qualified  to  undertake  an  original  composition  till  he  was 
sixty  years  of  age,  at  which  time  it  is  conjectured  he 
began  to  execute  the  plan  of  his  "  Canterbury  Tales." 
The  arrangement  of  the  poem  bearing  this  title  into  one 
harmonious  series  was  a  conception  that  would  do  credit 
to  any  period  of  literature.  If  suggested,  as  is  probable, 
by  the  "  Decameron"  of  Boccaccio, — where  a  company 
is  represented  as  having  retired  to  a  place  of  safety  from 


100  LECTURE    THIRD. 


the  raging  of  a  pestilence  and  amusing  themselves  with 
tales  of  mirth, — it  is  free,  as  has  been  observed  by  Mr. 
Coleridge,  from  all  reproach  of  unfeelingness  to  which 
the  plan  of  the  Italian  author  exposes  his  narrators. 

Chaucer's  plan  was  to  present  a  collection  of  narrative 
poems,  enlivened  by  a  variety  both  of  subject  and  of  tone, 
comprehending  the  range  of  tragic  and  comic  invention. 
A  usage  of  the  Middle  Ages,  still  prevalent  in  the  poet's 
day,  afforded  an  appropriate  mode  of  executing  the  idea. 
The  work  opens  with  an  allusion  to  the  season  of  the 
year  when  the  mild  temperature  of  spring  tempted  people 
from  all  quarters  of  England  to  journey  on  pilgrimages 
to  the  shrine  of  the  sainted  martyr  at  Canterbury.  The 
poet,  bent  on  the  same  pious  errand,  finds  himself  a  lodger 
at  the  Sign  of  the  Tabard,  in  Southwark,  in  company 
with  the  promiscuous  gathering  of  pilgrims  of  various 
occupations  and  spheres  of  life  as  well  as  both  sexes. 

The  prologue  to  the  Canterbury  Tales  is  an  elaborate 
description  of  this  company,  and,  beyond  all  question, 
gives  the  modern  reader  a  more  complete  notion  of  the 
manners  and  customs  of  the  fourteenth  century  than 
could  by  any  research  be  gathered  from  historical  records. 
The  state  of  society,  the  way  of  life,  the  social  habits  of 
our  ancestors,  five  hundred  years  ago,  are  vividly  presented, 
with  various  details  the  memory  of  which  must  have 
perished  had  it  not  been  perpetuated  by  the  conservative 
magic  of  the  poet.  The  prologue  is  a  complete  poem  in 
itself,  not  presenting  indeed  proofs  of  Chaucer's  high- 
est powers,  but  abounding  in  strokes  of  the  happiest  dis- 
crimination of  character,  and  wonderfully  graphic  as  a 
delineation  of  life  with  all  its  actual  varieties.  It  places 
the  author,  too,  as  not  only  one  of  the  earliest  but  one  of 


CIIAfCER'S    nCMOUR.  101 


tlie  most  successful  of  English  satirists.  The  satire  most 
genial  to  the  gentle  spirit  of  Chaucer  is  that  in  which 
the  serious  is  blended  with  the  playful.  He  was  a  kindly- 
tempered  humourist,  better  pleased  to  touch  with  a  ten- 
der hand  the  weaknesses  of  men  than  to  task  their  follies 
and  their  crimes.  (There  is  in  his  chiding  more  of  the 
placid  smile  of  Horace^  than  the  fierce  indignation  of 
Juvenal.)  The  various  portraits  in  the  prologue  owe  their 
effect  in  a  high  degree  to  the  delicacy  of  the  satirist's 
strokes.  We  see  the  shipman,  sunburnt  and  managing 
his  steed  with  a  sailor's  usual  style ;  the  prioress,  with  the 
precision  of  a  nun,  finding  herself  in  a  somewhat  mixed 
and  secular  society,  and  with  her  amiable  affectation  of 
both  in  the  pronunciation  of  her  French  and  the  fashions 
at  the  table,  and  yet  withal  a  natural  placidity  shining 
through  her  assumed  stateliness.  In  the  descriptions  of 
the  sergeant-at-law  and  the  doctor  of  physic,  Chaucer's 
skill  in  bringing  out  a  characteristic  trait  in  a  very  few 
words  is  especially  conspicuous.  Of  the  lawyer,  it  is  said, — 

"  Discreet  he' was,  and  of  great  reverence; 
He  seemed  such,  his  wordes  were  so  wise." 

With  a  memory  stored  with  judicial  decisions  and  the 
statutes  of  the  reaJm,  he  is  portrayed  as  the  busiest  of 
mortals;  and  then  it  is  added,  with  that  quiet  humour 
which  is  forever  jetting  out  of  Chaucer's  pages, — 

"And  yet  he  seemed  busier  than  he  was." 

The  doctor  of  physic  is  described  as  deep-versed  in  sur- 
gery, and  in  the  natural  magic  and  astrology  which  made  so 
large  a  part  of  the  medical  practice  of  the  Middle  Ages : — 


102  LECTURE    THIRD. 


"  Anon  he  gave  to  the  sick  men  his  (help ;) 
Full  ready  had  he  his  apothecaries, 
To  send  him  drugges  and  his  lettuaries. 
For,  eche  of  them  made  other  for  to  winne, 
Their  friendship  was  not  newe  to  beginne." 

The  satire  stops  not  with  this  allusion  to  the  doctor  and 
apothecary  playing  into  each  other's  hands ;  for,  after  an 
imposing  list  of  his  medical  authorities,  one  expressive 
line  informs  us  that 

His  study  was  but  little  on  the  Bible;" 

a  reproach  on  the  medical  profession  the  justice  of 
which  I  shall  not  assume  to  discuss.  Sufficient  is  it  for  my 
purpose,  in  commenting  on  Chaucer's  powers  of  satire,  to 
remark  that  it  is  'a  reproach  at  one  time  so  current  that  it 
called  forth  a  vindication  in  that  curious  treatise,  the  Re- 
ligio  Medici  of  Sir  Thomas  Brown.  The  same  subject, 
with  a  suggestion  of  the  cause,  is  also  alluded  to  by  one 
of  the  dramatic  poets  of  a  subsequent  age; — 

I  "I  have  heard, — how  true 

I  know  not, — most  physicians,  as  they  grow 
Greater  in  skill,  grow  less  in  their  religion, — 
Attributing  so  much  to  natural  causes 
That  they  have  little  faith  in  that  they  cannot 
.     Deliver  reason  for." 

The  most  exquisitely-drawn  character — most  pleasing 
in  its  simplicity  and  grace — is  that  of  the  clergyman.  I 
can  quote  no  better  specimen  of  Chaucer's  descriptive 
style,  prefacing  it  with  a  remark  which  may  give  addi- 
tional interest  to  the  passage, — that  it  has  been  conjectured 


THE    TILLAGE    CLERGYMAN.  103 


that  the  poet  had  the  original  of  the  portrait  in  his 
friend,  the  pious  rector  of  Lutterworth,  the  first  of  the 
great  Keformers,  John  Wiclif.  It  has  also  been  sup- 
posed that  Dryden  applied  his  imitation  of  the  passage  to 
the  pious  Bishop  Ken ;  and  one  of  the  commentators 
suggests  that  Goldsmith  cast  his  eye  on  Chaucer's  en- 
gaging description,  and  accordingly  transferred  a  trait  or 
two  of  the  clerical  character  in  its  brighter  view  to  the 
preacher  in  his  "  Deserted  Tillage." 

A  good  man  there  was  of  religioun, 
That  was  a  poore  parson  of  the  town  ; 
But  rich  he  was  of  holy  thought  and  work; 
He  was  also  a  learned  man,  a  clerk, 
That  Christe's  gospel  truly  woulde  preach ; 
His  parishens  devoutly  would  he  teach  : 

*  *  *  *  # 

Benigne  he  was,  and  wonder  diligent, 
And  in  adversity  full  patient. 

Wide  was  his  parish  and  houses  far  asunder,  , 

But  he  ne  left  nought  for  no  rain  nor  thunder, 
In  sickness  and  in  mischief,  to  visit 
The  farthest  in  his  parish. 

*  *  *  * 

He  sette  not  his  benefice  to  hire, 
And  left  his  sheep,  accumbred  in  the  mire, 
And  ran  into  London,  unto  Saint  Paule's, 
To  seeken  him  a  chantry  for  souls, 
Or  with  a  brotherhood  to  be  withold, 
But  dwelt  at  home  and  kepte  well  his  fold; 
So  that  the  wolf  ne  made  it  not  miscarry. 
He  was  a  shepherd,  and  no  mercenary ; 
And,  tho'  he  holy  were,  and  virtuous, 
He  was  to  sinful  men  not  dispitous ; 
Ne  of  his  speeche  dangerous,  ne  digne, 
But  in  his  teaching  discreet  and  benign. 
To  drawen  folk  to  heaven  with  fairness, 
By  good  ensample,  was  his  business. 


104  LECTURE    THIRD. 


But,  if  were  any  person  obstinate, 
What  so  he  were  of  high  or  low  estate, 
Him  would  he  snibben  sharply  for  the  non£s  : 
A  better  priest  I  trow  that  nowhere  none  is." 

Among  the  pilgrims  going  to  Canterbury,  and  thus 
chance-collected  at  the  inn  at  Southwark,  it  is  agreed,  at 
the  suggestion  of  their  host,  that,  for  mutual  amusement, 
each  one  shall  tell  at  least  one  tale  in  going  and  another 
on  their  return  from  Canterbury.  This  is  the  fable  of  the 
poem,  in  the  execution  of  which  it  was  contemplated  by 
the  author  to  connect  the  narratives  by  appropriate  intro- 
ductions and  by  episodes  prompted  by  the  incidents  of 
the  pilgrimage.  It  would  carry  me  beyond  my  limits  to 
enter  upon  any  thing  like  a  critical  analysis  of  this  series 
of  twenty-three  narrative  poems,  which  are  finely  intro- 
duced by  the  "  Knight's  Tale/' —  the  tragic  story  of  Pala- 
mon  and  Arcite.  The  framework  of  the  tales  is,  in  most 
if  not  in  every  instance,  borrowed  from  older  poets, 
especially  those  of  Italy ;  but  this  was  a  process  which, 
as  with  Shakspeare,  still  left  ample  scope  for  originality. 
The  mention  of  the  great  dramatic  poet  reminds  me  of 
another  important  resemblance  between  the  constitution 
of  his  mind  and  Chaucer's.  I  mean  that  possession,  in 
equal  congeniality,  of  tragic  and  comic  powers,  which  is 
one  of  the  signs  of  the  highest  order  of  human  genius. 
The  most  intelligent  editor  of  the  "  Canterbury  Tales," 
Mr.  Tyrwhitt,  has  noticed,  as  a  great  difference,  that  in 
the  serious  pieces  Chaucer  often  follows  the  author  he 
borrows  from  with  the  servility  of  a  mere  translator; 
whereas,  in  the  comic,  he  is  generally  satisfied  with  borrow- 
ing a  slight  hint  of  his  subject,  which  he  varies,  en- 
larges, aad  embellishes  at  pleasure,  and  gives  the  whole 


CHAUCER'S    GENIUS.  105 


the  air  and  colour  of  an  original, —  a  sign  that  his  genius 
rather  led  him  to  compositions  of  the  latter  kind.  It 
appears  to  me,  however,  that  the  admirable  pathos  which 
is  so  often  to  be  met  with  on  his  pages  may  well  impair 
somewhat  the  confidence  of  this  opinion ;  and  I  cannot 
but  feel  that  it  is  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  pronounce 
whether  the  natural  bent  of  his  genius  was  to  tragedy  or 
comedy.  Whichever  opinion  may  be  adopted,  it  would, 
indeed,  be  a  wrong,  because  a  partial,  judgment;  for 
there  is  an  order  of  imaginations,  to  which  Chaucer's 
belongs,  which  is  comprehensive  of  the  whole  range 
of  human  emotions,  having  at  command  alike  both  tears 
and  smiles.  How  vain,  for  instance,  and  how  shallow? 
would  be  the  criticism  which  would  seek  to  decide 
whether  the  characteristic  power  of  the  mind  which 
created  Hamlet  and  which  created  Falstaff  was  either 
tragic  or  comic,  instead  of  a  larger  energy  inclusive  of 
them  both !  It  is  indeed  true  that  there  pervades  the 
writings  of  Chaucer  a  hearty  and  manly  cheerfulness  so 
easy  and  unaffected  that  it  suggests  the  thought  rather 
of  a  joyous  temperament  than  the  meditative  cast  of 
mind  for  which  he  was  distinguished.  It  is  impossible 
to  read  his  poetry  without  being  impressed  with  a  sense 
of  his  deep  insight  into  human  nature,  and,  besides 
that,  his  strong  and  well-disciplined  judgment  and  good, 
plain,  practical  common  sense.  And  here  let  me  take 
occasion  to  say  that  I  hold  that  habit  of  plain  philo- 
sophy— the  power  of  looking  at  things  aright — to  be  a 
trait  of  true  genius.  In  the  course  of  these  lectures  I 
shall  be  able — I  know  that  I  shall  be  able — to  show  you 
that  the  freaks  and  caprices  of  the  intellect,  perverse 
notions,  and  morbid,  distempered  feelings,  belong  to  the 


106  LECTURE    THIRD. 


secondary  order  of  mind,  and  that  it  is  a  miserable 
fallacy  which  ascribes  them  to  genius  of  the  first  rank. 
I  shall  have  occasion  to  deal  with  the  productions  of 
spirits  as  glorious  as  any  that  have  adorned  the  annals 
of  the  human  mind,  and  from  them  prove  that  the 
reproach  of  the  wrong  head  or  the  wrong  heart  is  falsely 
cast  upon  true  genius.  The  good  sense  I  have  spoken 
of  as  a  trait  of  Chaucer's  character  is  finely  exhibited  in 
the  course  of  the  tale  told  by  the  Oxford  Student, —  the 
story  of  the  patient  Grisilda, —  that  pattern  of  woman's 
endurance, — a  wife  chosen  from  humble  life  by  a  noble 
husband,  who  is  led  by  a  strange  fancy  to  subject  her 
patience  to  trials  the  severest  his  ingenuity  could  devise 
to  wound  a  wife's  and  a  mother's  heart.  The  poet  gives 
the  narrative  as  if  his  own  patience  could  ill  brook  the 
heartless  trifling  with  the  heroine : — 

"  He  had  assayed  her  enough  before, 
And  found  her  ever  good.     "What  needeth  it 
Her  for  to  tempt,  and  always  more  and  more  ? 
Though  some  men  praise  it  for  a  subtle  wit 
(But,  as  for  me,  I  say  that  evil  it  fit) 
T'assay  a  wife  when  that  there  is  no  need, 
And  putten  her  in  anguish  and  in  drede." 

An  officer  is  sent  to  tear  her  child  from  the  mother's 
arms  and  to  take  it  away  to  death.  After  the  silence 
of  her  first  amazement, — 

"  But  at  last  to  speaken  she  began, 
And  meekly  she  to  the  sergeant  prayed, 
So  as  he  was  a  worthy  gentleman, 
That  she  might  kiss  her  child  ere  that  it  died. 
And  in  her  lap  this  little  child  she  laid, 
With  full  sad  face,  and  'gan  the  child  to  bless} 


HIS    RESPECT    FOR    THE    FEMALE    SEX.  107 


And  thus  she  said,  in  her  benigne  voice, — 
'Farewell,  my  child;  I  shall  thee  never  see; 
But,  since  I  have  thee  marked  with  the  cross, 
Of  the  thilke  Father  blessed  mayest  thou  be, 
That  for  us  died  upon  a  cross  of  tree. 
Thy  soule,  little  child,  I  him  betake; 
For  this  night  shalt  thou  dien  for  my  sake.' " 

The  tone  of  Chaucer  toward  woman  is  the  thoughtful 
deference  of  a  Christian  gentleman,  or,  to  use  a  term 
perhaps  more  appropriate  to  the  age  in  which  he  flou- 
rished, a  Christian  knight, —  a  spirit  as  remote  on  the  one 
hand  from  flippant  contempt  as  on  the  other  from  vapid 
and  sentimental  adoration.  In  the  tale  I  have  just 
quoted  from,  he  adds, — 

•'  Men  speak  of  Job,  and  most  for  his  humbless ; 
As  clerkes,  when  them  list,  can  well  indite 
yainely  of  men,  but  as  in  sothfastnesse. 
Though  clerkes  praisen  women  but  a  lite, 
There  can  no  man  in  humbless  him  acquite 
As  woman  can,  ne  can  be  half  so  true 
As  woman  be." 

The  writings  of  'Chaucer  have  an  interest  in  connec- 
tion with  ecclesiastical  history;  for,  abounding  as  they 
do  in  keen  and  earnest  satire  of  clerical  and  monastic 
abuses,  they  have  truly  been  reckoned  among  the  means 
by  which  popular  sentiment  was  animated  and  prepared 
for  the  great  change  of  the  Reformation.  The  celebrated 
John  Fox,  the  martyrologist,  expressed  surprise  that  they 
were  suffered  to  elude  ecclesiastical  censorship,  whose 
severity  was  spent  on  many  less  influential  productions. 
Not  to  such  abuses  was  the  satire  of  Chaucer  confined; 
and  it  is  a  proof  of  the  vigour  of  his  mind  that  in  one 


LECTURE    THIRD. 


of  the  "Canterbury  Tales,"  apparently  prompted  by  a 
sudden  indignation,  he  has  turned  the  light  of  his 
genius  upon  the  grand  delusion  of  the  Middle  Ages, — 
the  search  for  the  philosopher's  stone.  The  tale  is  a 
eurious  and  elaborate  representation  of  the  sleights  of 
alchemy,  •written  no  doubt  for  the  purpose  of  rescuing 
the  simple-minded  from  falling  victims  to  vain  hopes 
of  their  own  and  the  artful  impositions  of  others.  It  is 
conceived  in  a  most  vivid  detestation  of  the  folly  and 
falsehood;  and,  with  other  manifestations  of  the  same 
spirit,  shows  how  largely  this  old  poet  shared  that  one 
prime  element  of  a  poet's  heart, —  the  love  of  truth. 

There  is  an  important  question  as  to  the  influence  of 
Chaucer's  poems  on  the  English  language.  On  this  point, 
opinions  the  most  opposite  have  been  sustained.  On  the 
one  hand,  by  an  early  etymologist  he  has  been  condemned 
as  its  chief  corrupter;  as  having  brought  into  the  lan- 
guage, in  the  strong  phrase  of  the  writer,  "  cart-loads  of 
Norman  words," — a  reproach  which  has  been  repeated  by 
many  later  authors;  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  to  this  same 
Chaucer  was  applied  the  phrase  so  often  quoted  in  igno- 
rance alike  of  its  authorship  and  of  its  application, — "the 
well  of  English  undefiled."  This  tribute  to  his  illustrious 
predecessor  in  verse  was  from  the  poet  Spenser.  The 
full  examination  of  this  subject  would  involve  details 
not  suited  to  the  occasion.  The  Saxon  and  Xorman 
languages,  or,  to  describe  them  by  other  names,  the 
English  and  French,  were  not  then  two  distinctly-sepa- 
rated streams.  They  were  beating  together  in  stormy 
agitation,  and  no  one  could  either  control  the  tide  or 
foresee  its  future  course.  It  was  Chaucer's  fate  to  float 
upon  those  waves.  "  If,"  says  the  poet's  most  intelligent 


CHAUCER'S    INFLUENCE    ON    TIIE    LANGUAGE.     109 


editor,  "  we  could  suppose  that  the  English  idiom  in  the 
age  of  Chaucer  remained  pure  and  unmixed  as  it  was 
spoken  in  the  court  of  Alfred  or  Egbert,  and  that  the 
French  was  still  a  foreign  or  at  least  a  separate  lan- 
guage, is  it  credible  that  a  poet,  writing  in  English  on 
the  most  familiar  subjects,  would  stuff  his  compositions 
with  French  words  and  phrases  which  must  have  been 
unintelligible  to  the  greatest  part  of  his  readers  ?  Or,  if  he 
had  been  so  very  absurd,  is  it  conceivable  that  he  should 
have  immediately  become  not  only  the  most  admired  but 
also  the  most  popular  writer  of  his  times  and  country  ?" 
It  was  Chaucer's  misfortune  to  have  only  an  unformed — 
an  unripe— language ;  but,  to  prove  that  his  influence 
on  that  language  was  powerful  and  happy,  it  is  enough 
to  observe  the  strength  of  thought,  the  variety  of  feeling, 
the  delicate  shades  of  meaning,  of  which  he  made  the 
language  expressive.  It  is  no  proof  of  Chaucer's  having 
corrupted  a  pure  dialect  that  the  language  of  his  poems 
has  become  obsolete,  and  that,  too,  not  recently;  for  an 
English  historian  writing  two  hundred  years  ago  re- 
marks that  an  Englishman  needs  an  interpreter  to  under- 
stand Chaucer's  English.  It  is  also  well  as  wittily 
observed  by  the  same  writer  —  the  church-historian, 
Fuller — that,  if  the  poet  left  the  English  tongue  so  bad, 
how  much  worse  did  he  find  it!  and,  accordingly,  he 
gives  him  the  praise  of  having  refined  and  illuminated  it. 
It  is  the  opinion  also  of  a  very  competent  judge  in  our 
own  day,  it  being  remarked  by  Southey  that  in  no  other 
country  has  any  writer  effected  so  much  with  a  half- 
formed  language.  Retaining  what  was  popular  and 
rejecting  what  was  barbarous,  he  at  once  refined  and 
enriched  it.  The  language  which  has  not  reached  a  firm 


110  LECTURE    THIRD. 

consistency  is  doomed  to  grow  obsolete ;  and  a  poet  of  the 
seventeenth  century — Waller — thus  deplores  the  wrong 
done  by  the  hand  of  Time  to  the  early  poets : — 

"We  write  in  sand ;  our  language  grows, 
And  like  the  tide  our  work  o'erflows. 
Chaucer  his  sense  can  only  boast, — 
The  glory  of  his  numbers  lost; 
Years  have  defaced  his  matchless  strain : 
And  yet  he  did  not  sing  in  vain." 

A  literary  question  has  also  been  made  respecting  the 
character  of  Chaucer's  versification;  and  it  may  be  con- 
sidered an  undecided  discussion,  with  high  authority  on 
each  side,  whether  his  verse  is  rhythmical,  to  be  read  by 
cadence,  admitting  a  considerable  variety  in  the  number 
of  syllables  in  each  line,  or  metrical, — that  is,  with  fixed 
metres  and  limited  to  ten  or  eleven  syllables.  This  ques- 
tion is  one  too  much  of  technical  prosody  to  be  more  than 
alluded  to.  But,  as  has  been  well  remarked  by  one  of  the 
disputants,  "be  it  as  it  may,  it  is  no  slight  proof  of  Chau- 
cer's sagacity  that  he  should  have  pitched  the  key  and 
determined  the  length  of  verse  which,  after  so  many 
experiments  and  the  lapse  of  nearly  five  centuries,  have 
been  found  to  accord  best  with  the  genius  of  language, 
and  that  his  'riding  rhyme/  under  the  more  dignified 
denomination  of  the  'heroic  couplet/  should  be  the 
measure  which  Dryden  and  Pope  and  their  followers 
have  preferred  to  all  others  for  grave  and  lofty  subjects/' 

The  extended  plan  of  the  poem  of  the  Canterbury 
Tales,  as  stated  in  the  prologue,  was  never  accomplished; 
and  it  stands  the  mighty  fragment  of  the  genius  of  the 
first  of  the  great  English  poets, — one  surpassed  in  the  ver- 
satility of  his  powers  only  by  the  unapproachable  genius 


II  IS    BLEMISHES.  Ill 


of  Shakspeare.  The  plan  was  wonderfully  elaborate,  and 
wonderfully  achieved,  too,  when  we  consider  that  it  was 
entered  on  by  the  poet  at  the  advanced  age  of  threescore. 
Life  was  too  short  for  the  vast  speculations  of  the  poet's 
imagination;  for  not  only  does  the  proposed  series  of  the 
tales  remain  unaccomplished,  but  it  will  be  remembered 
that  it  is  over  the  imperfect  fragment  of  one  of  them 
that  Milton  laments  in  that  fine  passage  of  "  II  Penseroso" 
where  he  craves  the  power  to  call  up  the  lost  poets  from 
oblivion : — 

"  0  sad  virgin,  that  thy  power 
Might  raise  Musacus  from  his  bower, 
Or  bid  the  soul  of  Orpheus  sing 
Such  notes  as,  warbled  to  the  string, 
Drew  iron  tears  down  Pluto's  cheek, 
And  made  hell  grant  what  love  did  seek  ! 
Oh,  call  on  him  that  left  half  told 
The  story  of  Carnbusean  bold ; 
Of  Camball  and  of  Algarsife, 
And  who  had  Canace"  to  wife, 
That  owned  the  virtuous  ring  and  glass ; 
And  of  the  wondrous  horse  of  brass 
On  which  the  Tartar  king  did  ride." 

That  Chaucer  did  not  achieve  all  that  his  genius 
meditated  was  a  misfortune;  but  the  truth  must  not  be 
withheld  that  there  rests  on  his  memory  the  reproach  of 
having  in  some  of  his  productions  stained  his  inspirations 
with  the  grossness  of  his  times.  That  it  was  the  gross- 
ness  of  an  age  still  rude  and  unrefined  is  the  extenuation. 
It  is  a  plea  which  may  well  be  uttered  in  apology  for  one 
the  general  tendency  of  whose  poetry  is  indisputably 
moral.  The  blemishes  which  disfigure  it  are  of  that  kind 
which  may  disgust  but  which  can  scarcely  contaminate. 


112  LECTURE    THIRD. 


His  gentle  spirit  had  its  season  of  contrition  for  his 
poems  which  "  sounen  unto  Sin,"  and  for  which  he  prayed 
forgiveness.  In  the  hour  of  death  the  thought  of  their 
popularity  was  agony  to  him :  he  is  said  to  have  exclaimed, — 
"  Woe  is  rue  that  I  cannot  recall  and  annul  these  things ! 
Out,  alas,  they  are  continued  from  man  to  man,  and  I 
cannot  do  what  I  desire."  The  lofty  aspiration  of  the 
verses  considered  his  last  composition — the  voice  from 
the  anguish  of  a  dying  bed — may  plead  for  the  oblivion 
of  the  imperfection  of  some  of  his  writings: — 

"The  wrestling  of  the  world  asketh  a  fall; 
Here  is  no  home :  here  is  but  wildernesse. 
Forth,  pilgrim!  forth,  0  beast,  out  of  thy  stall! 
Look  up  on  high,  and  thank  thy  God  of  all." 

Chaucer  died  in  the  year  1400,  leaving  the  countless 
generations  who  repeat  the  English  tongue  a  body  of 
poetry  which,  if  destined  in  the  lapse  of  time  to  be 
wrapped  in  the  dust  of  an  antiquated  dialect,  was  destined 
also  to  contribute  to  the  development  of  the  genius 
of  some  of  the  mightiest  of  his  successors.  His  tomb 
was  in  the  city  of  his  birth,  in  that  consecrated  re- 
ceptacle of  the  dead  where,  in  honour  of  him, — the  father 
of  English  poetry, — have  since  been  gathered,  in  the  Poets' 
Corner  of  the  Abbey,  the  remains  and  the  monuments  of 
the  family  of  the  bards  of  England.  "He  lies  buried," 
says  Fuller,  "  in  the  south  aisle  of  St.  Peter's,  Westminster, 
and  since  hath  got  the  company  of  Spenser  and  Drayton, — 
a  pair  royal  of  poets,  enough  almost  to  make  passengers' 
feet  move  metrically  who  go  over  the  place  where  so  much 
poetical  dust  is  interred." 


LECTURE  IV. 

J?{jcns£r  an*)  flu  pin  sir*  Is  jr. 

Kelapse  in  English  Poetry  after  Chaucer  from  1400  to  1553 — Its 
causes — The  Wars  of  the  Roses  —  Ecclesiastical  disturbance  — 
The  Reformation  and  Queen  Elizabeth — Wyatt  and  Surrey — The 
Sonnet — Blank  Verse — Sackville — Elizabeth's  reign  and  character — 
Classical  learning — The  British  Church — Spenser's  birth,  in  A.D. 
1553— The  Shepherd's  Calendar— Its  Allegory— The  Friendship  of 
Sydney — Spenser's  Residence  in  Ireland — The  Fairy  Queen,  in 
1590 — Sir  Walter  Raleigh — The  great  work  of  Spenser — Milton's 
praise — Spenser's  mighty  Imagination — Appeal  to  human  sympa- 
thies— Chivalric  spirit — Religious  aim — Mr.  Hallam's  criticism — 
Hymn  to  Beauty — The  Spenserian  Stanza  —  Alliteration  —  His 
blemishes — The  Epithalamium — Death,  A.D.  1598 — The  British 
Minstrelsy  and  Ballads — Kiumont  Willie — Sir  Patrick  Spens — 
Armstrong's  Good-night. 

I  FEEL  great  reluctance  to  occupy  one  moment  of  your 
time  with  words  of  apology;  for,  while  no  one  can  be 
better  aware  than  I  am  how  often  these  lectures  will  stand 
in  need  of  it,  I  trust  it  is  the  dictate  of  a  truer  modesty 
which  prompts  me  to  set  them  before  you  simply  with- 
out pretension  and  without  apology.  There  is,  however, 
an  embarrassment  I  cannot  escape,  which  I  therefore  wish 
to  mention  in  one  or  two  words :  I  mean  the  perplexity 
between  a  desire  to  do  all  the  justice  I  can  to  each  subject 
as  it  rises  up  in  its  abundance  to  my  mind,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  anxiety  not  to  trespass  too  largely  on  your 

VOL.  i.  8  113 


1U  LECTURE    FOURTH. 


patience, — a  point  on  which  I  am  the  more  solicitous 
because  of  the  very  kind  attention  that  thus  far  has  been 
extended  to  inc.  The  subject  allotted  to  this  evening 
transcends  reasonable  bounds,  at  the  risk  of  impairing 
unity  of  impression. 

It  is  somewhat  unfortunate  for  the  complete  propriety 
of  the  metaphor  by  which  Chaucer  is  so  often  designated, 
that  the  "morning  star"  of  English  poetry  was  not 
followed  by  the  light  of  day.  The  genius  of  the  first  of 
our  English  poets  shone,  indeed,  like  the  last  of  the  starry 
host  newly  risen  above  the  outline  of  some  dark  mountain, 
but  not,  like  it,  to  mingle  its  beams  with  the  light  of  the 
coming  dawn.  That  early  outbreak  of  imagination  was 
not  followed  by  the  flood  of  light  which  flows  in  with 
the  perfect  day,  which  was  still  far  distant. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  of  these  relapses  in  intel- 
lectual advancement  is  the  long  interval  between  the 
death  of  Chaucer,  in  the  year  1400,  and  the  birth  of  the 
next  of  England's  great  poets,  Edmund  Spenser,  in  1553. 
This  period  of  more  than  a  century  and  a  half  is  com- 
paratively a  desolate  tract;  and,  parting  with  Chaucer  in 
the  era  of  the  Middle  Ages,  we  gain  companionship  with 
no  other  master-spirit  until  within  the  domain  of  modern 
times.  With  a  beauty  of  illustration  which  does  not 
often  adorn  the  pages  of  Warton's  "History  of  English 
Poetry,"  he  happily  compares  the  appearance  of  Chaucer 
in  the  language  to  a  premature  day  in  spring,  after  which 
the  gloom  of  winter  returns  and  the  buds  and  blossoms 
which  have  been  called  forth  by  a  transient  sunshine  are 
nipped  by  frosts  and  scattered  by  storms. 

For  this  blank  in  the  annals  of  the  English  Muse  there 
must  have  been  causes, — some,  it  may  be,  beyond  the  sight 


ENGLISH    POETRY    AFTER    CHAUCER.          '    115 


of  philosophy;  for  it  seems  to  me  that  the  vast  spiritual 
ocean  of  the  human  mind  has  its  tides,  not  like  the  daily 
currents  which  are  swayed  hy  the  near  influences  of  the 
moon,  but  with  an  ebb  and  flood  enduring  for  some  un- 
known term  of  ages  and  ruled  by  God's  hidden  provi- 
dence over  the  destinies  of  mankind.  Without,  therefore, 
venturing  to  penetrate  into  regions  where  speculation 
should  humbly  veil  its  eyes,  there  still  are  causes  which 
may  be  assigned  for  the  interruption  of  English  literature 
during  the  fifteenth  century : — seven  reigns  of  disputed 
legitimacy,  thirty  years  of  civil  slaughter,  which  first 
brutalized  and  then  crushed  the  nation's  heart,  so  that  to 
this  day  the  hues  which  the  Creator's  hand  has  given  to 
the  rose  seem  stained  with  blood.  The  period  succeed- 
ing the  wars  of  the  Houses  of  York  and  Lancaster  was 
not  such  as  to  give  the  needed  repose  to  the  nation's 
spirit,  wretchedly  wasted  by  its  long  agony.  The  reign 
of  the  second  of  the  Tudors, — 

"  That  majestic  lord 
Who  brake  the  bonds  of  Rome,"— 

was  a  time  of  ecclesiastical  revolution,  calmed,  indeed, 
during  the  few  short  years  of  that  saintly  youth, — 

"King,  child,  and  seraph,  blended  in  the  mien 
Of  pious  Edward." 

But  the  nation,  crushed  by  the  dominion  of  one  woman, 
was  soon  to  rise  to  its  highest  elevation  under  the  sway 
of  another.  It  is  not  my  theme  to  discuss  the  character 
of  Queen  Elizabeth,  to  weigh  her  power  of  sovereignty  with 
her  feminine  or  unfeminine  frailties,  presenting  her  in 


116  LECTURE     FOURTH. 


one  light  as  described  by  the  poet  Gray, — with  "lion  port 
and  awe-commanding  face,"  or  in  another,  or,  it  may  be, 
only  a  different  shade  of  the  same  light, — the  inimitable 
virago,  according  to  the  free  and  more  familiar  descrip- 
tion of  Sir  "Walter  Scott.  Enough  for  the  present  sub- 
ject is  it  that  the  forty-four  years  during  which  she  held 
the  sceptre  is  the  most  glorious  of  the  English  reigns, 
whether  the  sources  of  that  glory  are  to  be  traced  to  the 
sovereign  herself,  or  to  the  wisdom  of  the  counsellors  or 
the  courage  of  the  soldiers  by  whom  her  throne  was  en- 
circled. 

In  speaking  of  the  literary  interreign  between  Chaucer 
and  Spenser  for  the  purpose  of  a  general  impression,  I 
should  give  a  very  erroneous  view  were  I  to  leave  you  to 
suppose  that  during  that  period  of  more  than  a  century 
and  a  half  the  voice  of  the  English  Muse  was  hushed. 
It  did  not,  indeed,  produce  works  belonging,  like  the  Can- 
terbury Tales  and  the  Fairy  Queen,  to  the  highest  order 
of  poems;  but  there  flourished  those  who  well  deserve 
notice  before  entering  on  the  more  glorious  Elizabethan 
era. 

It  is  usual  to  mark  the  early  part  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury as  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  English  poetry,  and 
justly  so  when  we  consider  the  improvement  it  received 
from  two  poets  who  lived  during  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII., 
and  whose  names  are  scarce  separable,  from  early  and  long 
association.  They  were  men  of  aristocratic  rank, — Sir 
Thomas  Wyatt,  the  lover  of  Anne  Boleyn,  and  Henry 
Howard,  the  ill-fated  Earl  of  Surrey,  the  latter  especially 
being  esteemed  one  of  the  chief  reformers  of  English 
verse.  Acquaintance  with  the  more  refined  poetry  of 
Italy,  acquired  either  by  direct  personal  intercourse  or  by 


WYATT    AND    SURREY.  117 


study,  introduced  important  changes  into  that  of  Eng- 
land. Harsh,  pedantic,  and  unpoetical  fashions  of  speech, 
an  ambitious  style  which  betrayed  itself  as  early  as  the 
time  of  Chaucer  and  became  more  prevalent  afterwards, 
were  thrown  aside.  The  language  was  made  at  once 
more  graceful  and  more  simple,  and  Italian  forms  of 
verse  introduced.  The  sonnet  was  for  the  first  time 
naturalized  into  English  poetry,  to  prove,  as  I  shall  show 
hereafter,  congenial  with  its  spirit  and  fitted  to  be  the 
vehicle  of  a  vast  variety  of  thoughts  and  emotions.  The 
metres  of  English  verse  were  more  strictly  disciplined ;  so 
that  the  merit  has  been  claimed  for  Surrey  of  having  been 
the  first  to  lay  aside  the  early  rhythmical  form  for  the  more 
regular  metrical  construction.  There  is,  moreover,  due  to 
him,  beyond  all  question,  the  fame  of  having  given  the 
first  example  of  blank  verse, — that  form  which  has  proved 
so  eminently  and  peculiarly  adapted  to  the  language  that 
it  has  been  well  said  to  deserve  the  name  of  the  English 
metre, — a  construction,  as  we  shall  familiarly  see  in  the 
series  of  these  lectures,  so  rich  and  varied  in  its  music : 
for  it  will  sound  to  us  in  the  mighty  drama  of  Shak- 
speare,  in  the  epic"  language  of  the  Paradise  Lost,  in  the 
more  humble  strains  of  The  Tas-k,  and  the  utterance  of 
the  high  philosophy  of  The  Excursion. 

It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  Surrey  brought  to  the  cause 
of  letters  an  influence  important  in  that  period, — the  in- 
fluence arising  from  dignity  of  rank  and  honourable 
public  services.  He  was  noble  by  birth  and  by  character,  a 
courtier  and  a  soldier ;  but  his  bright  career  had  a  destiny 
of  blood.  There  is  nothing  in  the  annals  of  English 
history  of  which -we  acquire  an  earlier  and  more  vivid 
impression  than  the  domestic  tyranny  of  the  Eighth  Henry, 


118  LECTURE    FOURTH. 


— to  a  child's  fancy  the  British  Blue-Beard  of  its  story- 
book,— driving  from  him  his  wives,  the  mothers  of  his 
children,  and  devoting  more  than  one  fair  neck,  once  lov- 
ingly embraced,  to  the  bloody  handling  of  the  executioner. 
What  reign  in  the  range  of  history  so  execrable  ?  And  let 
me  help  your  hearts  to  a  still  more  fervid  hatred  by  re- 
minding you  what  was  almost  the  last  act  of  it.  Henry 
Howard  had  been  in  childhood  an  inmate  of  the  palace, 
— the  playmate  of  the  monarch's  child;  and  when  he  grew 
into  manhood  he  was  a  loyal  and  honoured  courtier  and 
a  gallant  and  trusted  soldier.  But  it  was  Surrey's  fate, 
and  his  only  crime,  to  bear  the  name  of  Howard, — a  name 
which  had  newly  become  odious  to  the  despot's  ear.  He 
was  committed  as  a  traitor  to  the  Tower;  and,  in  the 
very  same  week  in  which  death  was  slowly  travelling 
through  the  unwieldy  bulk  of  the  bloated  tyrant,  the 
young  poet,  the  gallant  Surrey,  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
seven,  laid  down  his  head  to  meet  a  traitor's  death  upon 
the  scaffold. 

Another  copartnership  in  poetry,  closer  than  that  of 
Surrey  and  "VVyatt  and  suggesting  very  different  associa- 
tions, is  to  be  briefly  noticed  in  the  succeeding  reign  of 
Edward  VI.,  when  was  produced  the  first  metrical  version 
in  English  of  the  Psalms  of  David,  by  two  writers  whose 
names  have  become  the  symbols  of  dulness  and  wretched 
versification, — Thomas  Sternhold  and  John  Hopkins.  It 
would  assuredly  be  a  bold  attempt  to  vindicate  from  its 
long-continued  reproach  the  poetical  character  of  these 
two  good  men.  They  were  indeed  for  the  most  part  but 
sorry  versifiers,  in  whose  hands  the  sublimity — or,  to  use  a 
more  adequate  term,  the  omnipotence-r-of  the  original 
Hebrew  psalmody  was  often  lost  in  their  flat  and  prosaic 


STERXHOLD    AND    HOPKINS.  119 


phraseology  and  clumsy  metres.  But  it  should  be  re- 
membered that  the  translation  of  the  Psalms  into  Eng- 
lish metre  is  an  enterprise  that  has  never  yet  been  suc- 
cessfully achieved,  though  even  the  name  of  Milton 
'stands  among  those  by  whom  it  has  been  adventured. 
It  is  also  to  be  remembered  that  honourable  testimony 
has  been  borne  by  high  authority  to  the  exactness  of  the 
old  version  in  its  correspondence  to  the  Hebrew  text,  and 
that  its  faults  are  redeemed  by  some  passages  of  true 
poetic  spirit,  a  vigour,  a  simplicity,  and  a  dignity,  befitting 
the  lofty  theme.  The  load  of  obloquy  which  rests  on 
the  memory  of  Sternhold  and  Hopkins  should  be  light- 
ened a  little  when  we  meet  with  a  stanza  such  as  this : — 

"The  Lord  descended  from  above,  and  bowed  the  heavens  most  high, 
And  underneath  his  feet  he  cast  the  darkness  of  the  sky: 
On  cherub  and  on  cherubim  full  royally  he  rode, 
And  on  the  wings  of  mighty  winds  came  flying  all  abroad." 

My  design,  however,  in  adverting  to  this  metrica 
version,  is  not  to  discuss  its  merits,  but  to  remark  that  it 
served  to  incorporate,  in  how  rude  soever  a  form,  into 
English  poetry  that  wonderful  series  of  songs  which 
"  Heaven's  high  muse  whispered  to  David," — wonder- 
ful in  its  adaptation  to  the  church  in  all  ages  and  in  all 
nations,  to  the  church  in  victory  or  in  wo,  and  to 
each  Christian  for  all  moods  of  devotion, —  his  season 
of  thanksgiving  and  joy,  his  hours  of  peril  and  affliction 
and  of  contrite  agony.  It  was  this  version  that  fitted  to 
English  lips  the  music  of  the  royal  inspired  singer;  and, 
as  the  homely  verses  were  year  after  year  familiarized  in 
the  people's  devotions,  the  matchless  imagery  of  the 
Hebrew  poetry  was  sinking  into  the  hearts  of  the  men 


120  LECTURE    FOURTH. 


of  England  and  inspiring  that  sacred  character  which 
is  the  glory  of  all  the  highest  inspiration  of  English 
poetry. 

Just  at  the  close  of  the  gloomy  reign  of  Queen  Mary 
there  appeared  one  poetical  effusion,  showing  a  force  of 
imagination  which  would  have  placed  its  author  in  the 
highest  rank  of  our  poets  had  he  not  relinquished  his 
inspiration  for  the  exclusive  devotion  of  his  genius 
during  a  very  long  life  to  the  political  service  of  his 
country.  "  The  Mirrour  of  Magistrates"  was  the  title 
of  a  work  planned  by  Thomas  Sackville,  Lord  Buck- 
hurst,  and  intended  to  comprise  a  series  of  narratives 
of  the  disasters  of  men  eminent  in  English  history.  The 
first  of  these,  with  the  poetical  preface,  or  "  Induction," 
as  it  is  styled,  was  all  that  he  contributed;  but  in  those 
few  hundred  lines  there  was  an  inventive  energy  the 
like  of  which  the  English  Muse  had  not  before  shown, 
and  a  glorious  o'ershadowing  of  the  allegorical  imagina- 
tion which  soon  after  rose  in  the  "Fairy  Queen."  Sack- 
ville's  "  Induction"  stands  as  the  chief — the  only  great — • 
poem  between  the  times  of  Chaucer  and  of  Spenser. 
Allegorical  poetry  presents  no  more  vivid  image  than 
in  that  single  line  of  his  personification  of  Old  Age, — 

"  His  withered  fist  still  striking  at  Death's  door, — " 

or  the  masterly  personification  of  War : — 

"  Lastly  stoode  Warre,  in  glitteryng  arms  yclad, 
With  visage  grim,  Sterne  looke,  and  blackly  hewed. 
In  his  right  hand  a  naked  sworde  he  had, 
That  to  the  hiltes  was  al  with  blood  imbrewed; 
And  in  his  .left  (that  kings  and  kingdomes  rewed) 
Famine  and  fyer  he  held,  and  therewythall 
He  razed  townes  and  threwe  down  tower?  and  ;i]l. 


SACKVILLE'S    POETIC    GENIUS.  121 


"Cities  he  sakt,  and  rcalmcs  that  whilom  flowered 
In  honour,  glory,  and  rule,  above  the  best, 
He  overwhelmede,  and  all  theyr  fame  devowered, 
Consumed,  destroyed,  wasted,  and  never  eeast 
Tyll  he  theyr  wealth,  their  name,  and  all  opprest. 
His  face  forehewed  with  woundes,  and  by  his  side 
There  hung  his  terge  with  gashes  deepe  and  wyde. 

"  In  mids  of  which  depaynted  there  we  found 
Deadly  Debate,  al  full  of  snakey  heare, 
That  with  a  bloody  fillet  was  ybound, 
Outbreaking  nought  but  discord  everywhere." 

What  a  gloomy  conception  was  the  plan  of  the  poem, — 
the  stories  of  the  miseries  of  the  great !  It  was  con- 
genial to  the  reign  in  which  it  was  composed,  and  has 
been  compared  to  a  landscape  on  which  the  sun  never 
shines.  More  than  that  might  be  said.  There  not  only 
hung  on  Sackville's  poetic  genius  a  gloomy  shade,  but  it 
may  be  thought  to  have  taken  its  colour  from  the  lurid 
light  of  the  flames  of  religious  persecution.  We  may 
picture  to  our  fancies  this  thoughtful  poet  turning  his 
footsteps  beyond  the  confines  of  London,  on  a  winter's 
day, — the  dreary  season  described  at  the  opening  of  the 
poein, — wandering  till  nightfall : — 

"  The  darke  had  dimmed  the  day  ere  I  was  ware :" 

And  what  was  the  spectacle  he  might  have  encountered  ? 
The  dispersing  throng,  that  had  just  gathered  round  the 
stake  where  flames  had  wrapped  a  martyr's  body,  the 
fire  not  yet  extinct  in  the  smouldering  ashes;  and  per- 
haps the  desolated  family — the  outcast  wife  and  children 
— lingering  on  the  spot  where  a  spiritual  hero  had  sealed 
his  faith.  It  was  a  fit  age  for  poetry's  darkest  concep- 
tions ;  and  readily  might  Sackville  frame  his  gloomy  per- 


LECTURE     FOfRTII. 


Bonification  of  sorrow  to  guide  him  in  fancy  into  the 
realms  of  death  and  to  hear  from  the  lips  of  the  dead 
the  story  of  their  woes.  Under  this  dreary  guidance,  his 
genius  entered  for  a  brief  season  into  the  shadowy  domain 
of  imagination;  but  soon  after  he  turned  the  powers  of 
his  mind  into  political  service,  in  which  he  continued 
during  the  whole  reign  of  Elizabeth  and  part  of  that  of 
her  successor,  when  the  hand  of  death  was  suddenly  laid 
upon  the  veteran  statesman  at  the  council-board  of 
James  I.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  in  actual  life 
he  personally  witnessed  two  instances  of  political  down- 
fall transcending  any  his  tragic  muse  could  have  called 
up  in  his  mournful  poem.  He  was  one  of  that  judicial 
tribunal  which  pronounced  the  doom  of  Mary  Stuart:  it 
was  from  his  lips  that  the  unhappy  queen  received  the 
message  of  death;  and  it  was  part  of  Buckhurst's  stern 
dut}T  to  behold  the  last  look  of  that  royal  fair  one,  and  to 
witness  the  blow  which  severed  from  her  now  wasted  body 
the  head  which  had  once  glittered  with  the  diadems  of 
both  France  and  Scotland.  It  was  also  Lord  Buckhurst's 
lot — and  these  were  perhaps  the  only  two  calamities  of 
his  long  and  honourable  career — to  sit  in  judgment 
upon  the  Earl  of  Essex  when  that  nobleman  fell  from  the 
pinnacle  of  queenly  favour. 

Referring  Lord  Buckhurst's  poem  to  the  time  of  Queen 
Mary,  I  come  now  to  the  most  illustrious  period  of 
English  poetry.  In  using  the  name  of  Queen  Eliza- 
beth to  mark  a  literary  era  there  is  a  propriety  beyond 
mere  chronological  convenience.  In  the  recorded  in- 
spirations of  the  Muse  she  fills  so  large  a  space,  and  genius 
poured  forth  such  abundant  streams  of  high-toned  loyalty 
to  her,  that  the  student  of  literature  must  contemplate 


ELIZABETH'S    RETOX    A  \  D    CHARACTER.  123 


this  influence  over  the  minds  of  her  contemporaries.  It 
would  be  a  small  purpose  for  me  to  inquire  how  far  the 
literary  loyalty  of  the  age  transcended  its  just  bounds 
into  the  extravagancies  of  adulation.  Sufficient  is  the 
fact  that  such,  whether  in  excess  or  not,  was  the  pre- 
dominant feeling,  of  which,  after  all  her  pomp  and 
power  were  in  the  grave,  there  is  familiar  evidence  in 
our  very  Bibles;  for  she  stands  recorded  in  the  preface 
to  our  English  version  in  the  glowing  phrase, — "  That 
bright  occidental  star,  Queen  Elizabeth,  of  most  happy 
memory."  It  would  carry  me  beyond  my  subject  to 
treat  of  her  character;  but  this  I  desire  to  say, —  that 
the  school  in  which  this  sovereign  wis  trained  was  the 
school  of  adversity.  History  presents  no  finer  con- 
trasts than  between  those  two  days  of  her  life.  The 
first,  when,  a  culprit,  on  suspicion  of  treason,  she  was 
brought  in  custody  along  the  Thames  to  be  committed 
to  the  Tower,  and,  perceiving  that  the  barge  was  steer- 
ing to  the  traitors'  gate,  she  refused  to  enter  that 
guilty  portal,  and,  in  the  utter  destitution  of  a  young 
and  helpless  woman,  called  God  to  witness  she  was  inno- 
cent. The  refusal  and  the  asseveration  of  innocence  were 
unavailing;  and  the  first  intelligence  that  reached  the 
prisoner  announced  that  the  scaffold  had  already  drunk 
the  blood  of  a  meeker  victim, —  the  Lady  Jane  Grey, — 
and  she  knew  it  was  thirsting  for  hers.  But  the  ear 
which  is  open  when  earthly  monarchs  are  deaf  heard 
her  cry  of  innocence,  and  in  the  course  of  a  few  though 
weary  years  she  was  again  the  inmate  of  the  ancient 
fortress  of  the  metropolis.  She  went  forth  the  queen 
of  a  rejoicing  nation,  surrounded  by  cohorts  of  her 
devoted  nobles  and  multitudes  of  a  happy  people;  and, 


121  LECTURE     FOURTH. 


before  the  crown  was  set  upon  her  brow,  lifting  her  eyes 
to  heaven,  she  poured  forth  fervid  thankfulness  to  the 
Almighty  for  his  wondrous  dealings, — for  his  wondrous 
mercies.  "Wherever  she  moved/'  says  the  record  of 
this  the  first  of  her  magnificent  progresses,  "it  was  to 
be  greeted  by  the  prayers,  the  shouts,  the  tender  words 
and  uplifted  hands,  of  her  people.  To  such  as  bade 
'God  save  Her  Grace!'  she  said  again,  'God  save  them 
all!'  so  that  on  either  side  there  was  nothing  but  glad- 
ness, nothing  but  prayer,  nothing  but  comfort." 

Such  was  the  fit  opening  of  a  reign  for  which  was  re- 
served a  glory  which  shall  fade  only  with  the  world  itself, — 
the  glory  that  rose  upon  our  race  in  the  genius  of  Edmund 
Spenser  and  William  Shakspeare.  To  the  period  usually 
comprehended  in  what  is  styled  the  age  of  Queeu  Eliza- 
beth no  less  than  about  two  hundred  poets  are  assigned 
by  a  catalogue  which  by  high  authority  is  thought  not  to 
exceed  the  true  number.  With  reference  to  English 
literature,  we  speak  of  the  age  of  Queen  Elizabeth;  but 
it  is  proper  to  discriminate,  by  noticing  that  there  was  in 
this  particular  a  decided  contrast  between  the  early  and 
late  portion  of  the  reign,  and  that  it  is  only  the  last  half 
to  which  this  lustre  properly  belongs.  It  is  this  consi- 
deration which  alone  enables  us  to  reconcile  with  a  true 
estimate  of  the  times  Sir  Philip  Sydney's  earnest  com- 
plaint of  the  degraded  condition  of  poetry.  It  was  during 
the  last  twenty  years  of  the  reign  that  the  flood  of  poetic 
light  burst  in:  the  large  luminary  of  Spenser's  genius 
had  scarce  mounted  high  enough  above  the  horizon  for 
its  beams  to  kindle  all  they  touched,  when  there  arose  the 
still  more  glorious  shape  of  Shakspeare's  imagination,  like 
Milton's  seraph, — "another  morn  risen  on  mid-noon."  In 


CLASSICAL    LEARNING.  125 


treating  of  this  period  of  literature,  the  nature  of  these 
lectures  will  oblige  me  to  limit  my  views  to  these  two 
poets,  the  matchless  types  of  their  age,  while,  in.  doing  so, 
I  must  pass  in  silence  hy  not  a  few  whose  fame  would 
have  shone  more  brightly  in  a  less  perfect  day.  There 
was  much  to  make  the  age  eminently  propitious  to  a  great 
intellectual  development.  The  language  had  gradually 
reached  its  full  stature.  It  was  not  only  adequate  to  the 
common  wants  of  speech,  but  it  was  affluent  in  expressions 
which  had  become  incorporated  with  it  from  the  literature 
of  antiquity.  Classical  learning  in  its  best  forms  had  been 
made,  as  it  were,  part  of  the  modern  mind  of  Europe ;  and 
in  England,  under  Elizabeth,  the  great  universities,  which 
during  the  immediate  previous  reigns  suffered  from  vio- 
lence, which  had  pierced  even  those  tranquil  abodes,  were 
gathering  anew  their  scattered  forces.  The  attainments  of 
the  queen  herself,  acquired  by  the  superior  education 
which  Henry  VIII.  had  the  sagacity  to  give  his  daughters, 
(and,  as  it  is  one  of  the  few  good  things  to  be  said  of  him, 
let  us  not  pass  it  by,)  created  a  sympathy,  one  of  many, 
between  her  and  the  people.  Besides  the  treasures  of 
classical  literature,  necessarily  limited  somewhat  to  the 
learned,  there  was  scattered  through  the  realm  a  literature 
familiar  to  the  popular  mind, — the  Gothic,  as  distinguished 
from  classical  lore,  the  early  metrical  romance,  the  bal- 
lads, and  the  minstrelsy  in  all  its  forms, — tales  told  by 
the  fireside  in  the  long  English  winter  evenings,  and  songs 
sung,  as  Shakspeare  tells  us,  by  women,  as  they  sat 
spinning  and  weaving  in  the  sun.  The  civil  and  religious 
condition  of  the  country  furnished  another  impulse  to  its 
mental  advancement,  for  it  abounded  with  all  that  could 
cheer  and  animate  a  nation's  heart.  There  was  the  repose 


126  LECTURE    FOURTH. 


from  the  agony  of  ecclesiastical  persecution,  and  it  mattered 
little  what  might  be  the  foreign  danger;  for  there  was  the 
proud  sense  of  national  independence  and  national  power, 
— its  moral  force  mightier  than  even  its  physical.  The 
spiritual  communion  with  Rome  was  broken  forever,  and 
England  was  once  more  standing  on  the  foundations  of 
its  ancient  British  church.  The  Thames,  his  tide  no 
longer  governed  by  the  distant  waves  of  Tiber,  "glided 
at  his  own  sweet  will."  The  language,  I  have  remarked, 
was  enriched  by  phraseology  of  classical  origin;  but  it 
had  also  gained  what  was  more  precious  than  aught  that 
could  come  from  the  domains  of  extinct  paganism.  The 
word  of  God  had  taken  the  form  of  English  words,  and 
thus  a  sacred  glory  was  reflected  upon  the  language  itself. 
The  fitness  of  the  language  for  versification  had  been 
greatly  developed  by  the  refinement  and  multiplicity  of 
its  metres,  so  that  the  rich  and  varied  melody  of  English 
words  became  audible  as  the  ancient  rudeness  of  early 
dialects  was  cleared  away. 

The  life  of  Edmund  Spenser  was  nearly  coincident 
with  the  last  half  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Born  in 
1553,  he  died  in  1598.  The  work  which  won  for  him 
rank  among  the  poets  was  the  now  almost-forgotten  poem 
entitled  "The  Shepherd's  Calendar," — a  series  of  twelve 
eclogues  adapted  to  the  twelve  months  of  the  year. 
Having  closed  his  collegiate  career  at  Cambridge,  he  dwelt 
for  about  the  space  of  two  years  in  the  north  of  England, 
perhaps  in  the  region  whence  in  this  century  has  issued 
so  noble  a  strain  of  poetry.  One  proof  of  the  poetic 
temperament  was  here  given  in  his  susceptibility  to  the 
attractions  of  a  fair  one,  immortalized,  though  unrelenting, 
under  the  fanciful  name  of  Rosalind.  The  suit,  though 


THE  SHEPHERD'S  CALENDAR.          127 


unsuccessful,  stands  recorded  in  as  sweet  a  line  as  ever 
told  a  poet's  love :  he 

"Wooed  the  widowed  daughter  of  the  glenne." 

The  opening  of  Spenser's  literary  career  strikes  me  as 
eminently  characteristic  of  his  gentle  spirit;  for  there  was 
all  the  modesty  of  genius,  conscious  of  powers  already 
proved  by  retired  efforts  and  whispering  to  itself  mightier 
achievements  in  days  to  come,  and  yet  withal  timid  in 
trusting  to  the  world's  rude  handling  its  secret  com- 
niunings  with  the  Muse.  There  was  no  precipitancy  in 
rushing  into  the  arena  of  authorship.  Not  till  about  his 
twenty-seventh  year  was  his  first  poem  published;  and 
then  it  catne  forth  without  his  name,  dedicated  in  the 
feigned  and  humble  signature,  "  Immerito,"  to  Sir  Philip 
Sydney : — 

"  Goe,  little  booke ;  thyselfe  present, 
As  childe  whose  parent  is  unkent, 
To  him  that  is  the  president 
Of  noblenesse  and  chivalrie; 
And  if  that  Envie  barke  at  thee, 
As  sufe  it  will,  for  succour  flee 
Under  the  shadow  of  his  wing." 

The  dread  of  malignant  tongues  or  of  unimaginative 
indifference,  painfully  as  they  seem  to  have  presented 
themselves  to  the  poet's  sensitive  apprehensions,  was  not 
strong  enough  to  silence  the  voice  of  his  genius,  which 
sought  utterance,  as  genius  always  speaks,  alone  from  its 
own  inward  promptings  : — 

i 

"For,  pyping  low  in  shade  of  lowly  grove, 
I  play  to  please  myselfe,  all  be  it  ill." 


LECTUUK     FOCKTII. 


He  sent  forth  the  "  Calendar"  not  in  boastful  emula- 
tion of  more  famous  productions  which  had  preceded  it, 
not  to  gain  indiscriminate  applause,  but  the  esteem  of 
the  wise  and  good  of  his  own  day  by  its  deferential  imi- 
tation of  those  whom  he  looked  up  to  as  the  masters  of 
English  song : — 

"Followe  them  farre  off,  and  their  high  steps  addore; 
The  better  please,  the  worse  despise :  I  ask  no  more." 

The  aspirations  of  Spenser  did  not  fail;  he  acquired  not 
the  mere  favour,  not  the  mere  patronage,  but  that  which 
comprehended  both, — the  friendship  of  a  great  and  a  good 
man, — that  model  of  the  perfect  gentleman  in  a  state  of 
society  where  somewhat  of  the  spirit  of  chivalry  was 
pa -sing  away  with  its  forms  and  giving  place  to  the 
habits  of  more  modern  days, — Sir  Philip  Sydney. 

"The  Shepherd's  Calendar"  is  a  pastoral  in  little  more 
than  name;  for,  containing  but  few  descriptive  passages, 
either  of  the  seasons  or  of  natural  scenery,  it  is  in  a  great 
measure  made  up  of  allegorical  allusions  to  the  political 
history  and  religious  differences  of  his  own  times, — the 
clergy  of  the  Roman  Catholic  and  Protestant  communions 
being  respectively  portrayed  under  the  transparent  guise 
of  two  classes  of  shepherds.  The  reader  of  early  English 
poetry  will  find  in  these  eclogues  two  fables — "  The  Oak 
and  the  Bramble"  and  "The  Kid  and  the  Fox" — not  sur- 
passed in  any  period  of  our  literature  for  the  graceful  plea- 
santry essential  to  that  species  of  composition.  It  is  worthy 
of  remark  that  the  phraseology  of  the  "  Calendar"  is  much 
antiquated  beyond  the  time  of  its  author,-i-so  much  so  as 
to  require  at  the  date  of  its  publication  an  explanatory 
glossary.  This  may  be  attributed  partly  to  a  desire 


THE    FRIENDSHIP    OF    SYDNEY.  129 


common  to  poets  of  various  ages  to  give  a  kind  of 
quaint  dignity  to  their  effusions  by  removing  them 
from  the  familiarity  of  contemporary  speech;  such,  for 
instance,  as  the  slightly-obsolete  language  affected  by 
Lord  Byron  in  the  first  books  of  "  Childe  Harold."  It 
may  also  be  traced  to  the  instinctive  disgust  with  the 
fashionable  style  of  the  pastoral  poetry  in  vogue  through- 
out Europe,  in  which  the  thoughts  and  the  expres- 
sions of  courtiers  and  scholars  were,  in  a  language  in- 
flated, pedantic,  and  over-refined,  put  in  the  mouths  of 
shepherds, — a  false  taste  censured  in  one  of  his  other 
poems : — 

"  Heapes  of  huge  wordes  uphoorded  hidiously, 
With  horrid  sound,  though  having  little  sense, 
They  thinke  to  be  chiefe  praise  of  Poetry ; 
And  thereby,  wanting  due  intelligence, 
Have  marred  the  face  of  goodly  Poesie 
And  made  a  monster  of  their  fantasia." 

In  shunning  this  error  and  aiming  at  a  Doric  sim- 
plicity, the  author  of  "The  Shepherd's  Calendar"  ran  into 
the  opposite  extreme  of  uncouth  rusticity.  This  poem 
may  be  regarded 'as  experimental  of  the  author's  powers 
and  of  the  capacity  of  his  countrymen  to  receive  him. 
Ten  years  elapsed  before  it  was  followed  by  the  great 
work  on  which  his  fame  rests.  During  this  interval  the 
genial  influence  of  Sydney's  friendship  was  shed  on 
Spenser's  spirit,  inspiring  him  to  loftier  efforts  than  his 
unpretending  pastorals.  If  ever  poet  had  reason  to 
thank  God  for  the  gift  of  a  true  friend,  it  was  the  author 
of  the  "  Fairy  Queen. 'T  The  chief  value  of  Sydney's 
friendship  was  in  the  Intellectual  sympathy  it  gave  to  one 
who  seems  to  have  borne  his  genius  meekly  on  him.  It 

VOL.  I.  9 


130  LECTUKE    FOURTH. 


also  brought  the  royal  patronage;  and  Spenser  accom- 
panied to  Ireland  the  lord-lieutenant,  the  good  Lord 
Gray,  as  his  secretary,  in  \vhich  capacity  he  rendered 
services  on  which  was  conferred  the  grant  of  a  large 
tract  of  land,  taken  from  the  forfeited  estates  of  one  of 
the  Irish  earls,  subject,  however,  to  the  condition  of  cul- 
tivation and  consequently  personal  obedience  to  the  pro- 
prietor. For  several  years  Spenser's  dwelling-place  was 
the  ruined  castle  of  Kilcolman,  on  the  banks  of  the 
river  Mulla,  commemorated  in  his  poems.  The  real 
value,  to  a  scholar,  of  his  three  thousand  Irish  acres 
cannot  easily  be  judged  of;  but  when  I  consider  that 
the  English  dominion  over  Ireland  was  at  that  time 
maintained  only  by  dint  of  military  occupation,  the 
country,  with  all  its  goodly  lakes  and  fair  islands,  swarm- 
ing with  the  fierce  untamable  natives,  lawless,  revenge- 
ful, and  treacherous,  sparing  no  peaceful  household, — 
the  land  devastated,  dwellings  plundered  and  in  flames, 
the  churches  in  ruins,  and  religion  depraved, — it  seems 
to  me  that  the  royal  bounty  to  the  poet  might  not  unfairly 
be  likened  to  a  plantation  in  Central  Florida, — as  fair  a 
region  as  fiercely  tenanted  by  the  prowling  bands  of  In- 
dians, scarce  more  ferocious  than  the  native  Irish  whom 
Queen  Elizabeth  spent  her  thousands  sterling  to  subdue. 
In  Spenser's  well-written  prose  treatise  on  the  state 
of  Ireland  he  says,  "At  the  execution  of  a  notable 
traitor  I  saw  an  old  woman,  which  was  his  foster-mother, 
take  up  his  head,  while  he  was  quartered,  and  suck  up 
all  the  blood  that  ran  thereout,  saying,  '  This  earth 
was  not  worthy  to  drink  it/  and  therewith  also  steeped 
her  face  and  breast  and  tore  her  hair,  crying  out  and 
shrieking  most  terribly."  When,  in  his  immortal  alle- 


SPENSER'S    RESIDENCE    IN    IRELAND.  131 


gory,  he  describes  the  abode  of  Temperance, — "a  goodly 
castle,  plaste  foreby  a  river,  in  a  pleasant  dale,  and  the 
bruitish  rabble  that  beleagured  it," — 

"  Loe ;  with  outrageous  cry, 
A  thousand  villeins  round  about  them  swarmed 
Out  of  the  rockes  and  caves  adjoining  nye  : — 
Vile  caitive  wretches,  ragged,  rude,  deformed, 
All  threatning  death,  all  in  strange  manner  armed : 
Some  with  unwieldy  clubs,  some  with  long  speares, 
Some  rusty  knives,  some  staves  in  fier  warmed. 
Sterne  was  their  looke;  like  wild  amazed  steares, 
Staring  with  hollow  eies  and  stifle  upstanding  heares." 

.  In  all  this  the  imagination  may  have  contented  itself 
with  the  mere  function  of  the  eye  looking  from  the 
ruined  turrets  of  Kilcolman  Castle.  It  was  uncouth 
society  and  a  strange  abiding-place  for  the  gentle  spirit 
of  Edmund  Spenser  to  be  consigned  to;  but  he  has  left, 
in  the  prose  treatise  just  referred  to,  proof  that  he  con- 
templated the  evil  plight  of  that  ill-fated  island  with  a 
manly  spirit;  and  we  find  not  the  petty  querulousness  of 
his  personal  grievances,  but  a  patriotic  zeal  in  the  service 
of  his  sovereign  and  a  Christian  hopefulness  to  better 
the  condition  of  his  fellow-men.  If  the  natives  were 
savage  and  debased,  the  face  of  nature  in  the  Green  Isle 
was  happy  and  smiling;  and  happier  and  brighter  still 
was  the  country  into  which  the  poet's  imagination  gained 
entrance, — the  sunny,  shadowy  vales,  the  fair  lakes, 
with  their  floating  islands,  the  delectable  mountains,  of 
Faery  Land.  Looking  upon  the  royal  bounty  to  Spenser 
as  little  better  than  virtual  banishment  from  all  he  held 
dear  in  his  native  land,  I  feel  sometimes  inclined  to  regard 
Queen  Bess  as  a  heartless  pedant,  craving  adulation  and 


132  LECTURE     FOURTH. 


yet  ready  to  remove  from  her  English  realm  its  brightest 
ornament.  But  Spenser  had  not  achieved  the  work 
which  has  endeared  him  to  after-times;  and,  besides,  the 
rough-hewn  purpose  of  those  who  sent  him  into  the  waste 
places  of  a  turbulent  province  was  shaped  to  a  glorious 
end.  Happy  was  it  that  his  spirit  was  withdrawn  from 
the  throng — from  the  unpropitious  atmosphere  of  a  court 
— to  muse  on  spiritual  creations  of  his  own  fancy  and 
amid  the  imaginative  forms  of  truth  which  in  bright  and 
countless  legions  came  trooping  round  him. 

In  1590  the  first  books  of  the  "  Fairy  Queen"  were 
published.  The  poem  came  forth,  not  with  the  timidity 
of  his  little  pastoral,  without  an  author's  name  and 
speeding  for  shelter  to  the  wing  of  a  benignant  patron, 
but  with  the  majesty  of  a  loftier  theme  and  a  nobler 
inspiration.  It  is  ushered  in  with  a  dedication  bearing 
the  name  of  Edmund  Spenser  and  addressed  to  the 
sovereign, — "  The  most  high,  mighty,  and  magnificent 
Empress,  renowned  for  pietie,  virtue,  and  all  gracious 
government,  Elizabeth,  by  the  grace  of  God  Queen  of 
England,  France  and  Ireland,  and  Virginia."  There 
stands  the  name  of  that  honoured  State.  There  is  many 
a  reason  for  the  lofty  spirit  of  her  sons ;  but  it  seems  to 
me  that  the  pulse  of  their  pride  may  beat  still  higher 
at  the  sight  of  the  record  of  "the  Ancient  Dominion"  on 
the  first  page  of  the  "  Fairy  Queen."  The  poet  placed  it 
there  as  a  tribute  to  her  from  whom  the  name  was  taken, 
and  not  less  to  the  gallant  enterprise  of  Kaleigh  and 
his  adventurous  followers.  It  is  one  of  the  interesting 
facts  connected  with  the  composition  of  the  "  Fairy 
Queen,"  that  before  the  poem  was  given  to  the  world 
the  course  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh's  adventurous  life 


COMPARISON    OF    SPENSER    AND    RALEIGH.          133 


brought  him  to  the  secluded  dwelling  of  Spenser,  by 
whom  the  interview  has  been  commemorated  in  verse. 
There  are  few  occurrences  in  the  history  of  literature  on 
which  the  fancy  can  more  pleasingly  dwell  than  the 
meeting  of  two  such  men.  Their  characters,  their 
varied  achievements, —  Raleigh,  fresh  from  his  martial 
enterprises  beyond  the  sea,  and  fitly  styled,  in  one  of 
Spenser's  ^imaginative  allegorical  titles,  "  The  Shepherd 
of  the  Ocean,"  at  one  time  his  sword  unsheathed  against 
the  ancient  monarchy  of  Portugal,  at  another  planting 
his  foot  on  the  unbroken  soil  of  the  New  World  and 
penetrating  into  the  amazed  tenantry  of  untamed  In- 
dians, and  now  greeted  by  the  gentle  Spenser, — the  poet, 
in  the  maturing  of  his  genius,  having  transcended 
bounds  more  vast  than  the  Atlantic  or  those  which 
Ilaleigh  had  overleaped;  for  he  had  passed  the  limits  of 
time  and  space,  and  now  came  back  radiant,  as  it  were, 
with  the  glory  he  had  caught  in  "  Fairy  Land."  They 
stood  together  beneath  the  poet's  roof, — the  ruined  castle 
of  the  ancient  Irish  earl;  they  wandered  together  amidst 
the  rich  foliage  of  the  Green  Island  and  along  the  banks 
of  the  river  which  flowed  through  the  poet's  grounds, 
and,  mingling  for  years  the  music  of  its  flow  with  the 
deep  melody  of  his  strains,  has  become  associated  with 
enchanted  fairy  streams.  When  we  conceive  the  soldier, 
"  the  Shepherd  of  the  Ocean,"  pouring  into  the  poet's 
ear  the  story  of  his  Atlantic  pilgrimage,  the  marvels 
of  the  New  World, — and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  poet 
rehearsing  his  wondrous  imaginations,  his  yet  unfinished 
song,  telling  its  story  too  of  a  world,  like  America, 
newly  discovered, — the  brilliant  and  boundless  realms  of 
Fairy  Land, — we  can  almost  imagine  these  two  gifted  mor- 


134  LECTURE     FOURTH. 


tals,  like  the  inhabitants  of  two  different  planets,  meet- 
ing on  this  dim  spot  which  men  call  earth,  and  re- 
vealing to  each  other  the  respective  glories  of  their 
abodes. 

The  friendship  of  Raleigh  supplied  the  loss  of  Sydney, 
•who  had  met  his  honourable  death  in  battle,  dying  with- 
out witnessing  Spenser's  great  achievements  in  verse. 
When  the  poem  of  the  "  Fairy  Queen"  came  forth  it  was 
introduced  with  a  magnificence  characteristic  of  the  age; 
for  it  was  not  only  dedicated  to  the  sovereign,  but  was 
prefaced  by  a  series  of  introductory  verses  addressed  to 
the  most  illustrious  statesmen  and  soldiers  of  her  court; — 
to  Hatton,  and  Burleigh,  and  Essex;  Howard,  and  Wal- 
singham,  and  Raleigh;  to  Buckhurst,  whose  muse  had 
slumbered  since  the  noble  effort  which  I  have  before 
spoken  of;  and  not  only  to  all  these,  but,  with  a  truth 
and  affection  worthy  of  the  poet,  to  the  mourning  sister 
of  his  lost  friend,  Sir  Philip  Sydney;  and  closing  with  an 
address,  full  of  the  chivalrous  gallantry  of  his  age,  "  to 
all  the  gratious  and  beautiful  ladies  of  the  court." 

Having  now  reached  the  confines  of  Spenser's  chief 
production,  my  mind  pauses  with  somewhat  of  dismay  at 
the  magnitude  of  the  theme  before  me.  When  I  con- 
sider the  vast  plan  of  the  poem  and  the  multitude  of  pas- 
sages of  surpassing  energy  and  beauty,  it  is  impossible  to 
escape  the  feeling  of  the  inadequacy  of  criticism  to  a  faith- 
ful portraiture  of  Spenser's  genius.  Were  I  to  attempt 
to  convey  a  general  idea  in  one  comprehensive  sentence, 
it  would  be  by  saying  that  the  "  Fairy  Queen"  was  the 
great  emanation  of  the  imagination  of  Protestant  Eng- 
land in  the  sixteenth  century.  When  Queen  Elizabeth, 
at  the  opening  of  her  reign,  made  her  public  entrance 


THE    FAIRY    QUEEX. 


into  London,  a  pageant  was  prepared  in  Cheapside, 
where  Time  accosted  her,  leading  by  the  hand  his  daugh- 
ter Truth,  and  Truth  presented  the  monarch  with  the 
English  Bible,  upon  which  was  written  "  Verbum  Veri- 
tatis."  That  fanciful  ceremony  was  a  type  of  the  state 
of  popular  thought  and  feeling  which  in  its  highest 
mood,  as  exalted  by  imagination,  produced  the  great  alle- 
gorical poem  under  consideration.  The  taste  for  alle- 
gorical poetry  had  for  a  long  time  been  predominant.  It 
entered  largely  into  the  imagination  of  Chaucer  and  his 
contemporaries,  and  more  recently  into  Sackville's  "In- 
duction." It  seems  to  me  to  have  closed  with  Spenser, 
passing  away — as  is  remarkable — in  the  full  glory  of  the 
zenith.  This  poem  shows  the  power  of  allegory  in  its 
true  and  most  imaginative  form, — not  the  spurious  and 
insipid  allegory  of  the  imaginative  personification  of  ab- 
stract qualities,  but  the  expression  of  a  covert  sense  under 
an  apparent  fable.  The  plan  of  the  "  Fairy  Queen"  is 
both  elaborate  and  involved,  and  could  scarce  be  stated 
without  consuming  more  time  than  would  be  prudent  to 
devote  to  it.  Its  general  purpose,  in  the  author's  words, 
wa.j  "  to  fashion-  a  gentleman  or  noble  person  in  vir- 
tuous and  gentle  discipline," — a  purpose  so  pure  and  so 
exalted  that  well  might  Milton  say,  addressing  himself  to 
the  Parliament  of  England,  "  I  dare  be  known  to  think 
our  sage  and  serious  poet  Spenser  a  better  teacher  than 
Scotus  or  Aquinas."  Each  book  of  the  poem  was  in- 
tended to  be  allegorical  of  some  virtue,  such  as  holi- 
ness, temperance,  chastity,  friendship,  justice,  and  cour- 
tesy, and  each  represented  or  defended  by  a  knight,  as 
the  whole  allegory  was  to  be  coloured  by  the  genius  and 
institutions  of  chivalry, —  a  chivalry,  however,  impreg- 


136  LECTURE    FOURTH. 


nated  with  the  spirit  of  Christianity,  and  therefore  more 
pure  and  spiritual  than  the  mere  earthly  system  that 
passed  under  the  name.  The  primal  element  of  a  great 
poet's  power  is  the  knowledge  of  the  human  heart;  and, 
wherever  his  imagination  may  roam  to  gather  its  mate- 
rials from  without,  there  must  first  be  communion  with 
all  that  dwells  in  the  recesses  of  his  own  soul.  This 
meditative  imagination  was  Spenser's  in  an  illustrious 
degree;  and  when  rising  from  the  deep  of  his  own  spirit 
to  look  abroad,  there  seems  to  have  been  no  spot  of  the 
knowledge  of  the  civilized  world  which  the  vision  of  his 
far-seeing  imagination  did  not  comprehend.  Sacred  and 
profane,  ancient  and  modern,  classical  and  romantic, 
history  or  fable  or  legend,  all  that  the  ingenuity  of  man 
has  devised  or  his  memory  perpetuated,  are  gathered  to- 
gether; not  a  promiscuous  and  discordant  mass,  but  fused 
by  the  heat  of  poetic  genius  and  poured  out  in  one 
glowing  and  glittering  flood.  And  here  let  me  take 
occasion  to  invite  attention  to  the  prime  constituent  of 
imagination, — imagination  as  described  by  Shakspeare, 
"  all  compact,'1 — the  faculty  of  blending  into  one  har- 
monious and  consistent  whole  the  various  elements  it 
calls  together.  On  the  pages  of  the  "  Fairy  Queen" 
you  meet,  for  instance,  the  exploded  mythology  of  an- 
cient paganism  and  the  immortal  mysteries  of  Chris- 
tian faith  so  shadowed  forth  together  that  the  sanctity 
of  the  last  is  yet  noways  sullied  by  profane  contact; 
the  blind  cravings  of  benighted  antiquity  are  so  united 
with  the  light  that  has  been  shed  upon  the  believer's 
heart  that  all  is  made  subservient  to  the  cause  of 
truth.  It  is  superficial  and  unimaginative  criticism  which 
censures  what  it  often  calls  the  confusion  of  paganism 


SPEN7SER'S    MIGHTY    IMAGINATION.  137 


and  Christianity.  It  is  a  false  criticism,  attributable  to 
an  incapacity  to  sympathize  with  a  high  and  strenuous 
effort  of  imagination,  and  from  which  I  shall  hereafter 
have  occasion  to  vindicate  also  the  poetry  of  Milton.  To 
the  apprehension  of  philosophical  criticism  there  is  no 
incongruity  in  combinations  thus  imaginatively  pre- 
sented. When,  for  instance,  one  of  Spenser's  heroes 
visits  the  realms  of  the  lost  spirits,  whom  does  he  be- 
hold ?  In  one  spot,  Tantalus,  consumed  with  the  hunger 
and  the  thirst  of  centuries,  and  with  the  dread  thought 
of  centuries  to  come;  and,  not  far  away,  another  wretch 
plunged  in  the  infernal  waters,  washing  and  wringing  his 
blood-stained  hands  eternally,  hopelessly, — the  deep 
damnation  of  Pontius  Pilate.  It  is  the  poorest  tech- 
nical criticism  which  halts  to  notice  that  one  is  brought 
from  the  fictions  of  paganism  and  the  other  from  truths 
recorded  in  Holy  Writ.  This  matters  not.  To  the 
fervid  imagination  they  are  both  realities;  for  they  are 
both  images  of  eternal  wo, — the  sufferings  hereafter  of 
a  wicked  life. 

The  might  of  Spenser's  imagination  was  manifested 
not  only  in  harmonizing  the  materials  his  erudition 
had  accumulated  from  every  region  of  learning,  but  in 
making  his  creations  independent  of  all  particular  time 
or  space ;  giving  them  indeed  a  habitation  and  a  name, 
but  an  existence  purely  imaginative,  in  the  limitless  land 
of  Fairy,  above  the  domains  of  History  and  Geography. 
He  places  you,  as  was  said  by  Coleridge,  "in  a  dream, — a 
charmed  sleep ;  and  you  neither  wish  nor  have  the  power 
to  inquire  where  you  are  or  how  you  came  there."  Now, 
in  this  poetic  process  there  was  imminent  danger, — dan- 
ger of  the  poet's  soaring  so  high  as  to  break  the  chain  of 


138  LECTURE     FOURTH. 


sympathy  with  the  human  heart  of  mortal  man  dwelling 
below  upon  the  earth.  His  flight  might  have  carried 
him  into  a  region  above  the  clouds, — into  an  atmosphere 
too  subtle  to  sustain  the  life  of  man's  frail  spirit.  The 
fatal  ultraism  of  supernatural  invention  is  the  unnatural. 
The  highest  proof  of  the  excellence  of  the  "Fairy  Queen" 
is  to  be  found  in  its  command  over  our  sympathies ;  for 
this  is  conclusive  of  its  fidelity,  even  amidst  all  the  exu- 
berance of  fancy,  to  nature.  The  wondrous  region  teems 
with  human  feelings;  it  is  full  of  humanity, — humanity 
refined  and  glorified.  The  supernatural  realm  which 
Spenser  has  peopled  with  the  multitudinous  creatures 
of  his  fancy  seems  like  the  earth  arrayed  in  some  spi- 
ritual illumination,  as  if  man's  dim  and  gross  vision  had 
been  couched  to  behold  the  bright  soldiers  encamped 
around  the  dwellings  of  the  just;  as  if  to  these  bodily  eyes 
of  ours  were  revealed  the  hosts  of  our  ministering  angels  ; 
as  if  it  were  granted  us  to  see  the  invisible  visitants  of 
the  human  soul,  speeding  on  their  errands  of  love  or 
roaming  with  purposes  of  hate.  When  the  imagination 
is  duly  kindled  by  this  unequalled  allegory  it  loses  not  its 
earthly  sympathies;  and  yet  at  the  same  time  it  is  en- 
chanted, like  Milton's  Comus  beholding  "  a  fairy  vision" 

Of  some  gay  creatures  of  the  element 
That  in  the  colours  of  the  rainbow  live, 
And  play  i'  the  plighted  clouds." 

And  how  is  it  that  the  poet,  amid  all  the  ethereal  move- 
ments of  his  fancy,  has  ever  held  his  foothold  on  the  earth, 
going  to  the  utmost  verge  of  the  fanciful  and  never  pass- 
ing the  bounds  which  separate  it  from  the  fantastic? 
Chiefly  by  the  deep  insight,  essential  to  all  great  poetry, 
into  human  nature, — a  knowledge  of  that  living  soul  given 


RELIGIOUS    AIM    OF    TIIF.    FAIRY    QUEEN.  139 


by  God's  breath  to  the  dust  of  the  ground  from  which  man 
was  formed;  a  knowledge  of  the  soul  in  the  weakness 
of  its  fallen  state;  and — what  gives  to  Spenser's  muse 
her  sacred  character — a  knowledge  of  the  soul  in  the 
more  hopeful  condition  of  the  redemption.  Besides  these, 
the  chief  and  grand  elements  of  the  poet's  power,  he  hu- 
manized his  lofty  allegory  by  making  it  an  elaborate  tale  of 
chivalry;  and  this  was  in  an  age  when  the  tilt  and  tour- 
nament had  not  become,  like  the  Eglinton  farce,  an  empty 
and  frivolous  pageant, — an  age  of  martial  excitement,  the 
early  modes  of  warfare  not  wholly  superseded,  and  there- 
fore the  feats  of  arms  and  knightly  adventures  still  in 
high  repute.  Another  means  by  which  the  allegory  was 
twined  about  the  heart  is  to  be  traced  in  the  frequent 
allusions  to  the  poet's  own  country  and  its  illustrious 
monarch,  by  which  he  has  made  his  fairy  creations  akin, 
as  it  were,  to  British  blood.  Thus  we  have  these  elements 
to  solve  the  earthly  and  unearthly  characters  of  the  magic 
poem.  It  is  all  fairy,  and  yet  full  of  all  that  fills  the 
human  heart;  it  is  full  of  patriotism;  and,  more  than  all, 
it  is  full  of  Christianity. 

That  Spenser  designed  the  "  Fa'iry  Queen"  as  a  profoundly 
moral  and  religious  poem  will  be  apparent  to  any  one 
who  studies  it  in  a  true  imaginative  spirit;  and  its  sacred 
character  has  not  been  duly  appreciated  simply  because 
the  unimaginative  reader  recognises  for  devotional  poetry 
only  that  in  which  the  lesson  is  obtruded  in  its  more 
direct  shape, — a  mode  of  instruction  utterly  uncongenial 
with  Spenser's  genius.  The  modest,  shrinking  delicacy 
of  his  nature  recoiled  from  handling  holy  themes  too  p.al- 
pably.  The  veiled  teaching  of  truth  accorded  not  only 

with  this  trait  of  his  genius,  but  also  with  the  illimitable 

4, 


140  LECTURE    FOUUT1I. 


powers  of  his  imagination.  To  the  reader  of  devotional 
poetry  who  expects  to  find  the  piety  all  spread  out  upon 
the  surface,  the  strains  of  Spenser  will  sound  like  the 
wild  stories  of  secular  romance ;  but  to  the  ear  of  a  cul- 
tivated imagination  they  come  like  echoes  from  the  oracle 
of  God.  When  the  celebrated  John  Wesley — a  man 
who  in  spiritual  affairs  exerted  probably  as  wide  an  in- 
fluence over  his  fellow-men  as  any  man  who  has  ever 
lived — gave  direction  for  the  clerical  studies  of  his  Metho- 
dist disciples,  he  recommended  them  to  combine  with  the 
study  of  the  Hebrew  Bible  and  the  Greek  Testament  the 
reading  of  the  "Fairy  Queen."  Whether  this  advice  was 
given  for  the  copious  imagery  and  pious  sentiments,  or  for 
the  abundant,  fervid,  and  melodious  diction  of  Spenser's 
poetry,  it  is  no  weak  authority;  for  no  one  knew  better 
than  Wesley  how  mighty  an  agent  is  the  imagination  in 
swaying  the  hearts  and  intellects  of  men,  and  the  conse- 
quent importance  of  the  cultivation  of  it. 

The  religious  aim  of  the  "Fairy  Queen"  is  especially  to 
be  discerned  in  the  first  book,  which  is  deemed  the  finest 
of  the  six,  and  is  in  itself  a  complete  poem.  The  legend 
of  the  Knight  of  the  Red  Cross,  or  Holinesse,  is  an 
allegory  as  perfect  in  the  execution  as  in  the  conception. 
The  knight  represents  the  militant  Christian  arrayed  in 
the  spiritual  panoply  described  by  St.  Paul.  Christian 
Truth,  or  the  Church,  is  typified  in  the  person  of  the 
heroine,  "the  heavenly  Una  with  her  milkwhite  lamb;" 
and  the  poet  of  Protestant  England  portrayed  Popery, 
or  spiritual  error,  under  the  form  of  Duessa.  My  lirnita 
foibid  my  attempting  any  amplified  comment  on  the 
poem;'  which  I  need  the  less  regret,  as  it  is  in  my  power 
to  refer  you  to  an  inimitable  series  of  critical  papers  on 


WILSON'S    CRITICISMS.  141 


the  subject  from  the  pen  of  Professor  John  Wilson,  of 
Edinburgh,  in  reference  to  which  that  calmly-judging 
critic,  Mr.  Hallain,  characterizes  the  author  as  a  living 
writer  of  the  most  ardent  and  enthusiastic  genius,  whose 
eloquence  is  as  a  rush  of  mighty  waters,  and  who  has  left 
it  for  others  almost  as  invidious  to  praise  in  terms  of  less 
rapture  as  to  censure  what  he  has  borne  along  in  the 
stream  of  unhesitating  eulogy.  These  papers  have  great 
value  as  pieces  of  imaginative  and  philosophical  criticism, 
written  in  a  spirit  of  such  glowing  admiration  of  Spenser 
that  I  would  most  earnestly  recommend  them  as  the  best 
means  of  extending  and  reviving  the  study  of  the  "  Fairy 
Queen."  They  are  to  be  found  in  Blackwood's  Magazine, 
beginning  in  the  year  1833. 

It  is  the  remark  of  this  eloquent  writer  that  no  poet 
ever  possessed  a  more  exquisite  sense  of  the  beautiful 
than  Spenser.  This  is  to  be  traced  in  his  descriptions 
of  external  nature,  and,  in  a  still  more  surpassing  degree, 
his  portraitures  of  female  beauty.  There  is  no  poet  of 
whose  powers  isolated  quotation  would  convey  a  more 
inadequate  impression  than  Spenser,  because  it  seems  to 
have  been  the  delight  of  his  spirit  to  luxuriate  in  its 
own  imaginings  of  holiness  and  virtue  and  beauty,  and 
then  to  pour  forth  a  long-continued  strain,  of  which  the 
well-sustained  effect  would  be  marred  by  disjointed  ex- 
tract. In  one  instance  a  description  of  a  fair  sylvan 
huntress  is  expanded  to  a  hundred  lines;  in  which, 
after  the  poet  has  wrought  up  the  sense  of  admiration 
by  a  matchless  profusion  of  fancy  and  imagery,  the 
last  touch  is  given  to  the  woodland  beauty  in  this 
stanza  : — 


142  LECTURE    FOURTH. 


"  Her  yellow  lockea,  crisped  like  golden  wyre, 
About  her  shoulders  weren  loosely  shed ; 
And,  when  the  winde  amongst  them  did  inspyre, 
They  waved  like  a  penon  wyde  dispred, 
And  low  behinde  her  backe  were  scattered  : 
And,  whether  art  it  were,  or  heedlesse  hap, 
As  through  the  flowering  forrest  rash  she  fled, 
In  her  rude  heares  sweet  flowres  themselves  did  lap, 

And  flourishing  fresh  leaves  and  blossoms  did  enwrap." 

But  more  exquisite  far  than  any  other,  rises  to  our 
imagination  the  form  of  Una,  radiant  with  the  simple 
grace  of  heavenly  truth, — beauty  beaming  through  her 
sorrows  as  she  wanders  searching  for  the  deluded  Chris- 
tian soldier : — 

"  Forsaken,  woeful,  solitary  maid, 
One  day,  nigh  wearie  of  the  yrkesome  way, 
From  her  unhastie  beast  she  did  alight, 
And  on  the  grasse  her  dainty  limbs  did  lay 
In  secrete  shadow,  far  from  all  men's  sight. 
From  her  fayre  head  her  fillet  she  undight, 
And  layd  her  stole  aside.     Her  angel's  face, 
As  the  great  eye  of  heaven,  shyned  bright, 
And  made  a  sunshine  in  the  shady  place  : 
Did  never  mortall  eye  beholde  such  heavenly  grace." 

The  high  spirituality  of  Spenser's  genius  is  in  nothing 
more  conspicuous  than  his  power  of  awakening  the  sense 
of  the  beautiful  by  his  imaginative  pictures  of  what  may 
be  called  spiritual  beauty,  as  distinguished  from  natural 
beauty.  He  seems  to  delight  in  the  possession,  as  it  were, 
of  a  new  sense, — his  mind's  eye  charmed  with  the  vision 
of  moral  loveliness, — an  imperishable  grace,  celebrated  in 
his  beautiful  "  Hymne  in  Honour  of  Beautie :" — 

"  Beautie  is  not,  as  fond  men  misdeeme, 
An  outward  shew  of  things  that  only  seeme. 


THE    HYMN    TO    BEAUTY.  143 


"  For  that  same  goodly  hew  of  white  and  red 
AVith  which  the  cheekes  are  sprinkled,  shall  decay; 
And  those  sweete  rosy  leaves,  so  fairly  spred 
Upon  the  lips,  shall  fade  and  fall  away 
To  that  they  were,  even  to  corrupted  clay  ! 
That  golden  wyre,  those  sparkling  stars  so  hright, 
Shall  turne  to 'dust,  and  lose  their  goodly  light. 

"  But  that  faire  lampe,  from  whose  celestiall  ray 
That  light  proeeedes  which  kindleth  lovers'  fire, 
Shall  never  be  extinguish!  nor  decay; 
But,  when  the  vital  spirits  doe  expire, 
Unto  her  native  planet  shall  retyre; 
For  it  is  heavenly  borne  and  cannot  die, 
Being  a  parcell  of  the  purest  skie." 

Spenser's  exquisite  sense  of  the  beautiful  was,  I  may 
say  of  course,  accompanied  with  as  vivid  a  conception 
of  the  opposite  images  of  horror  and  affright;  to  which 
we  owe  the  wonderful  pictures  of  the  "  Temple  of  Pride," 
the  "  Cave  of  Despair/'  and  the  "  Den  of  Mammon," 
demanding  a  strenuous  effort  for  the  reader's  imagina- 
tion to  keep  pace  with  the  poet's.  For  instance,  the 
abode  of  "  Temperance"  is  assailed  by  a  turbulent 
throng  of  "  Lusts"  and  "  Passions,"  led  on  by  one  thus 
portrayed : — 

"  Which  suddeine  horrour  and  confus6d  cry, 

When,  as  their  capteine  heard,  in  haste  he  yode 

The  cause  to  weet,  and  fault  to  remedy. 

Upon  a  tygre  swift  and  fierce  he  rode, 

That  as  the  wincle  ran  underneath  his  lode, 

AVhiles  his  long  legs  nigh  raught  unto  the  ground. 

Full  large  he  was  of  liinbe  and  shoulders  brode; 

But  of  such  subtile  substance  and  unsound, 
That  like  a  ghost  he  seemed  ichose  graveclothes  were  unbound. 


141  LECTURE    FOURTH. 


"As  pale  and  wan  as  ashes  was  his  looke; 
His  body  leane  and  meagre  as  a  rake, 
And  skin  all  withered  like  a  dryed  rooke; 
Thereto  as  cold  and  dreary  as  a  snake, 
That  seemed  to  tremhle  evermore  and  quake. 
All  in  a  canvas  thin  he  was  bedight, 
And  girded  with  a  belt  of  twisted  brake.; 
Upon  his  head  he  wore  an  helmet  light, 

Made  of  a  dead  man's  skull,  that  seemed  a  ghastly  styhtJ 


But  I  must  forbear  from  any  attempt  to  enter  on  this 
kind  of  detailed  comment  on  the  poem,  which  cannot  be 
pursued  without  a  sense  of  amazement  at  the  unbounded 
sources  of  Spenser's  imagination. 

The  scope  of  these  lectures  has  of  necessity  a  limit  in 
the  examination  of  any  one  production  of  the  poet's;  tut 
there  is  no  finer  theme  for  me  to  indulge  the  hope  of  re- 
turning to  in  some  future  course,  and  rendering  that  full 
homage  which  is  due  to  the  "  Fairy  Queen." 

It  is  a  common  but  very  erroneous  literary  opinion 
which  gives  to  Pope  the  merit  of  having  carried  the 
versification  of  English  poetry  to  its  highest  perfection. 
With  all  the  refinement  of  his  numbers,  he  still  falls 
below  the  author  of  the  "  Fairy  Queen"  in  the  variety, 
the  power,  and  the  matchless  melody,  of  verse.  The 
instrument  which  Spenser  sounded  was  one  of  far  greater 
compass,  unequalled  in  the  depth  and  sweetness  of  its 
tones.  The  fame  too  often  given  to  Pope  is  the  rightful 
property  of  his  great  predecessor,  who,  among  other 
achievements  in  this  department  of  his  calling,  gave  to 
the  poetry  of  his  language  that  structure  of  verse  which 
bears  his  name, — the  Spenserian  Stanza.  He  seems  to 
have  considered  that  there  was  due  to  his  elaborate  poem 


THE    SPENSERIAN    STANZA.  145 


a  peculiar  and  appropriate  metrical  fashion;  that  it 
should  have  a  voice  of  its  own.  When  you  come  to 
analyze  the  stanza,  it  is  found  to  be  one  of  considerable 
complexity;  and  the  effect  on  the  ear  is  such  that  if  the 
movement  seems  ever  embarrassed,  as  it  were,  by  conflict- 
ing currents  of  sound,  occasioned  by  the  reduplication 
and  the  involution  of  the  rhymes,  still,  it  passes  over 
these  obstacles  victoriously  in  the  long  Alexandrian 
verse  which  gives  so  magnificent  a  close  to  every  stanza. 
The  following  stanza  appears  to  me,  in  this  respect, 
typical  of  its  structure : — 

"  As  a  tall  ship  toss6d  in  troublous  seas, 
Whom  raging  winds,  threatning  to  make  the  prey 
Of  the  rough  rocks,  doe  diversly  disease, 
Meetes  two  contrarie  billows  by  the  way, 
That  her  on  either  side  doe  sore  away, 
And  boast  to  swallow  her  in  greedy  grave, — 
Sh^,  scorning  both  their  spights,  does  make  wide  way, 
And,  with  her  brest  breaking  the  foamy  wave, 

Does  ride  on  both  their  backs,  and  fain  herself  doth  save." 

The  effect  is  also  very  frequently  enhanced  by  Spencer's 
revival  of  the  alliteration,  which  has  been  employed  to 
an  excess  in  the  •  very  early  English  poetry.  "  In  his 
master-hand  it  loses  its  artificial  and  mechanical  appear- 
ance, and  gives  often  to  the  line  a  richness  of  sound  the 
secret  of  which  is  not  discovered  till  examined  analytically. 
The  Alexandrine  closing  of  the  following  stanza  has,  it 
will  be  observed,  peculiar  force  and  beauty,  resulting  in 
part  from  the  alliteration  : — 

"  For,  round  about,  the  walls  yclothed  were; 
With  goodly  arras  of  great  majesty, 
Woven  with  golde  and  silke  so  close  and  nere, 
That  the  rich  metal  lurked  privily, 
VOL.  i.  10 


146  LECTURE  FOUlilll. 


As  faining  to  be  hidd  from  envious  eye  ; 
Yet  here  and  there,  and  everywhere,  unwares 
It  shewed  itselfe,  and  shone  unwillingly 
Like  to  discoloured  snake,  whose  hidden  snares 
Through  the  green  grass  his  long,  bright-burniskt  buck  declares." 

Unable  to  point  to  a  hundred  of  the  characteristic 
beauties  of  the  "  Fairy  Queen"  which  I  must  pass  in 
silence,  I  have  no  disposition  to  spend  a  moment  on 
what  are  considered  its  imperfections.  One  of  these  is 
thus  finally  disposed  of  by  the  eloquent  critic  whose 
papers  on  the  poem  have  been  referred  to : — "  Spenser's 
style  is  said  to  be  diffuse.  So  is  the  style  of  a  river  when 
it  chooses  to  become  a  lake.  But  a  river  never  chooses  to 
become  a  lake  without  a  sufficient  reason  for  such  change 
of  character.  It  keeps  a  look-out  how  the  land  lies,  and 
adapts  its  career  to  circumstances  all  its  way  down  from 
source  to  sea.  There  you  see  it  shooting  straight  as  an 
arrow;  here  you  might  mistake  it  for  a  mighty  serpent 
uncoiling  in  the  sun ;  there  you  almost  wonder  why  it  is 
mute,  till  you  gaze  again  and  are  ashamed  of  yourself  for 
having  expected  voice  from  one  so  still  and  deep;  and 
here  you  see  the  old  tops  of  trees  swinging  in  the  storm, 
but  hear  not  the  branches  creak,  because  of  the  thunder 
of  the  cataract.  Just  so  with  Spenser.  One  hour  you 
see  him — that  is,  his  poetry — carelessly  diffused  in  the 
sunshine  and  enjoying  the  spirit  of  beauty,  in  which  he 
lies  enveloped  as  in  a  veil  of  dreams;  another,  he  winds 
away  lucidly  along  flowery  banks,  with  a  sweeter  and  yet 
sweeter  song  as  he  nears  the  bowers  on  the  borders  of 
paradise;  now,  as  if  subdued  by  a  sudden  shadow,  his 
brightness  grows  a  glimmer,  and  the  glimmer  a  gloom, 
and,  wondering  what  noise  it  is  you  hear,  you  catch  a 


THE    EPITHALAMIUM.  HT 


sight  through  the  mist  of  white  tumbling  waves,  and  re- 
coil in  alarm  from  a  monstrous  sea." 

The  "  Fairy  Queen"  exists  in  a  fragmentary  state.  Of 
the  twelve  projected  books  but  six  are  complete.  There 
is,  I  think,  little  if  any  reason  to  suppose  that  the  poem, 
according  to  the  original  plan  of  it,  was  ever  finished. 
The  tradition  of  the  other  books  having  perished  is  very 
improbable. 

The  conception  was  perhaps  too  vast  to  be  achieved 
even  by  the  powers  of  Spenser ;  and,  whatever  might 
have  been  effected  with  length  of  days,  his  life  closed  in 
its  prime  maturity.  During  the  latter  period  of  his 
existence  his  domestic  happiness  had  been  for  a  brief 
season  greatly  enlarged  by  a  happy  marriage,  which  in- 
spired one  of  the  most  poetical  of  his  occasional  poems. 
The  "  Epithalamiurn"  is  thus  characterized  by  Mr.  Hal- 
lam  : — "  It  is  a  strain  redolent  of  a  bridegroom's  joy 
and  of  a  poet's  fancy.  The  English  language  seems  to 
expand  itself  with  a  copiousness  unknown  before  while 
Spenser  pours  forth  the  varied  imagery  of  this 
splendid  little  poem.  I  do  not  know  any  other  nuptial 
song,  ancient  or  modern,  of  equal  beauty.  It  is  an  in- 
toxication of  ecstasy,  ardent,  pure,  and  noble.  But  it 
pleased  not  heaven  that  these  day-dreams  of  genius  and 
virtue  should  be  undisturbed."  Spenser  retired  to  his 
residence  in  Ireland  with  his  wife, — one  of  the  three 
"  Elizabeths" — he  has  commemorated  as  dear  to  him, — 
his  mother,  his  queen,  and  his  bride.  A  very  few  short 
years  passed  over  his  happy  home,  gladdened,  too,  by  the 
voices  of  his  children.  The  rebellion  of  Tyrone  broke  out; 
Kilcolman  Castle  was  seized  and  fired  by  the  rebels, 
from  whom  Spenser,  with  his  wife  and  two  young  chil- 


118  LECTURE     FOURTH. 


dren,  scarce  escaped.  His  property,  and  the  intellectual 
treasures  of  his  unfinished  writings,  were  in  a  moment 
destroyed;  but,  sadder  far1  to  think  of,  there  perished  in 
the  flames  the  poet's  infant  child.  Spenser  hastened  to 
London,  and,  after  the  lapse  of  a  few  weeks, — the  in- 
articulate voice  of  his  lost  babe  doubtless  forever  sound- 
ing in  his  ears,  the  vision  of  its  tender  limbs  wrapped  in 
flames  forever  burning  on  his  fancy, — the  author  of  the 
" Fairy  Queen"  breathed  his  last.  He  died  at  an  inn:  it 
has  been  said,  heart-broken  and  starving : — this  may  be 
exaggeration; — but  certainly  heart-stricken  and  in  need. 
Sydney  was  in  the  grave;  Raleigh  was  far  away  upon  the 
sea;  Burleigh  had  no  sympathy  with  the  suffering  bard; 
and  Essex  was  not  the  quick  friend  he  had  found  in 
others. 

"  Spenser, 

For  all  the  glory  that  thy  copious  song 
Poured  on  the  great,  what  did  they  pour  on  thee  ?" 

His  body  was  buried  in  Westminster  Abbey,  by  the 
side  of  Chaucer.  His  pall  was  borne  by  poets ;  and  the 
last  honour  paid  to  him  whose  genius  had  been  so 
purely  devoted  to  elevate  and  beautify  the  ideal  of 
womanly  character  was  paid  by  a  woman's  affectionate 
reverence.  A  monument  was  erected  by  Anna,  Countess 
of.  Dorset,  with  this  simple  inscription : — "  Here  lies,  ex- 
pecting the  second  coming  of  our  Saviour  Jesus,  the 
body  of  Edmund  Spenser,  the  prince  of  poets  in  his 
time,  whose  divine  spirit  needs  no  other  witness  than 
the  works  which  he  left  behind  him.  He  was  born 
in  London,  in  the  year  1553,  and  died  in  the  year 
1598." 


BRITISH    MINSTRELSY    A\D    BALLADS.  149 


In  examining  that  literary  period  to  which  Spenser 
belongs,  there  is  a  department  of  poetry  which  it  is  ne- 
cessary for  me  to  allude  to  with  much  more  brevity  than 
contents  me.  I  mean  the  Minstrelsy,  which,  having 
begun  at  a  remote  and  unknown  period  of  the  language, 
is  supposed  to  have  flourished  most  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  and  especially  on  the  frontier 
between  England  and  Scotland. 

Let  it  be  remembered  that  it  was  of  one  of  these 
rude  ballads  that  Sir  Philip  Sydney,  immediately  before 
the  time  of  Spenser  and  Shakspeare,  when  more  ambitious 
poetry  failed  to  satisfy  the  longings  of  his  imagination, 
said,  "  I  never  heard  the  old  song  of  Percy  and  Doug- 
lass that  I  found  not  my  heart  moved  more  than  with 
a  trumpet." 

The  martial  state  of  society  among  the  border-popula- 
tion seems  to  have  fostered  a  minstrelsy  distinguished 
for  the  vivid  energy  of  its  strains,  the  boldness  of  its 
descriptions,  and  a  wild  intermixture  of  rough  humour  and 
simple  pathos,  which  have  rarely,  if  ever,  been  caught  by 
even  the  best  of  its  imitators.  The  border-life  was  one 
of  perpetual  danger  and  activity.  Private  feuds  assumed 
somewhat  of  the  dignity  of  national  war;  and  the  fre- 
quent themes  of  the  minstrel  were  acts  of  lawless  vio- 
lence or  the  griefs  of  a  widowed  wife  and  a  childless 
mother.  The  ballads  have  been  handed  down  from  gene- 
ration to  generation, — for  the  most  part  treasured  only 
on  the  tablets  of  memory;  but  often  in  these  fragments 
there  is  a  force  and  a  graphic  reality  which  stimulates 
the  imagination  to  a  ready  apprehension  of  the  imperfect 
tale.  Fcr  instance,  in  such  a  lament  as  this : — 


150  LECTURE    FOURTH. 


"  Hie  upon  Hielands, 

And  low  upon  Tay, 
Bonnie  George  Campbell 

Rade  out  on  a  day. 
Saddled  and  bridled 

And  gallant  rade  he ; 
Ham  cam  bis  gude  horse, 

But  never  cam  he ! 

"  Out  cam  his  auld  mither, 

Weeping  fu'  sair, 
And  out  cam  his  bonnie  bride 

Riven  her  hair. 
Saddled  and  bridled 

And  booted  rade  he  ; 
Soon  name  cam  the  saddle, 
But  never  cam  he  ! 

"  My  meadow  lies  green 

And  my  corn  is  unshorn ; 
My  barn  is  to  build 

And  my  babies  unborn. 
Saddled  and  bridled 

And  booted  rade  he ; 
Soon  hame  cam  the  saddle 

But  never  cam  he !" 

Among  the  ballads  collected  with  such  affectionate 
zeal  by  Sir  Walter  Scott  there  is  one  which  has  struck 
my  fancy  as  describing  the  border-life  with  even  more 
than  the  usual  animation.  It  is  entitled  "  Kinmont 
Willie,"  and  relates  the  rescue  of  a  prisoner  from  Carlisle 
Castle  by  the  Lord  of  Buccleugh : — a  very  gallant  exploit, 
and,  what  was  uncommon,  effected  without  bloodshed. 

The  boldness  of  the  Scots  in  thus  surprising  an  English 
fortress  is  said  to  have  highly  incensed  Queen  Elizabeth, 
and  to  have  endangered  the  peace  of  the  two  kingdoms. 
When  Buccleugh  was  afterwards  presented  to  the  Eng- 


KINMONT    WILLIE.  151 


Jish  sovereign,  tradition  tells  us  that,  in  her  peremptory 
way,  she  demanded  how  he  dared  to  undertake  an  en- 
terprise so  desperate ;  and  the  undaunted  chieftain's 
answer  was,  "  What  is  it  that  a  man  dares  not  do  ?" — a 
reply  which  so  struck  the  queen  that  she  exclaimed, 
"  With  ten  thousand  such  men  our  brother  of  Scotland 
might  shake  the  firmest  throne  of  Europe." 

At  an  advanced  part  of  my  course  I  shall  have  occa- 
sion to  recur  to  the  early  minstrelsy,  in  showing  how  the 
revival  of  the  study  of  it  contributed  to  reanimate  Eng- 
lish poetry,  and  especially  how,  sinking  into  the  heart 
of  Walter  Scott,  it,  more  than  any  other  external  influ- 
ence, made  him  what  he  was.  How  must  the  fire  of  his 
imagination  have  glowed  with  the  restoration  and  perusal 
of  this  ballad,  narrating,  in  its  rude  fashion,  an  adven- 
ture of  his  own  clan,  led  on  by  an  ancestor  of  his  own 
chieftain, —  the  Lord  of  Buccleugh.  I  shall  quote  such 
stanzas  of  the  ballad  as  will  keep  the  train  of  the  story : — 

"  Oh,  have  ye  na'  heard  o'  the  fauso  Sakelde, 

Oh,  have  ye  na'  heard  o'  the  keen  Lord  Scroope  ? 
How  they  ha'e  ta'en  bauld  Kinmont  Willie, 
On  Haribee  to  hang  him  up  ? 

Had  Willie  had  but  twenty  men, 

But  twenty  men  as  stout  as  he, 
Fause  Sakelde  had  never  the  Kinrnont  ta'en,       , 

Wi'  eight-score  in  his  companie. 

'  They  band  his  legs  benenth  the  steed, 

They  tied  his  hands  behind  his  back ; 
They  guarded  him,  five  some  on  each  side, 
And  they  brought  him  ower  the  Liddel-rack. 

"  They  led  him  through  the  Liddel-rack, 
And  also  through  the  Carlisle  sands, 


152  LECTURE    FOURTH. 


They  brought  him  to  Carlisle  Castle, 
To  be  at  my  Lord  Scroope's  commands. 

" '  My  hands  are  tied,  but  my  tongue  is  free, 

And  wha  will  dare  this  deed  avow  ? 
Or  answer  by  the  border-law, 
Or  answer  to  the  bauld  Buccleugh  ?' 

"  '  Now  baud  thy  tongue,  thou  rank  reiver, 
There's  never  a  Scot  shall  set  thee  freej 
Before  ye  cross  my  castle-gate, 
I  trow,  ye  shall  take  farewell  o'  me.' 

" '  Fear  na'  ye  that,  my  lord,'  quo'  Willie : 

'  By  the  faith  o'  my  body,  Lord  Scroope,'  he  said, 
'I  never  yet  lodged  in  a  hostelrie 
But  I  paid  my  lawing  before  I  gaed.' 

"  Now  word  is  gane  to  the  bauld  keeper 

In  Branksome  Ha',  where  that  he  lay, 
That  Lord  Scroope  has  ta'en  the  Kinmont  Willie 
Between  the  hours  of  night  and  day. 

"  He  has  ta'en  the  table  with  his  hand ; 

He  garr'd  the  red  wine  spring  on  hie : 
'  Now,  a  deep  curse  on  my  head,'  he  said, 
'  But  avenged  of  Lord  Scroope  I'll  be ! 

"  J  Oh,  is  my  helmet  a  widow's  coif? 

Or  my  lance  a  wand  of  the  willow-tree  ? 
Or  my  arm  a  lady's  lilye  hand, 

That  an  English  lord  should  lightly  me  ? 

"  '  And  have  they  ta'en  him  Kinmont  Willie 

Against  the  truce  of  border-tide, 
And  forgotten  that  the  bauld  Buccleugh 
Is  keeper  here  on  the  Scottish  side  ? 

"  '  Oh,  were  there  war  between  the  lands, — 

As  well,  I  wot,  as  there  is  none, — 
I  would  slight  Carlisle  Castell  high, 
Thousrh  it  were  built  of  marn]«>  stone. 


KIXMOXT    WILLIE.  153 


" '  I  would  set  that  castell  in  a  flame, 

And  sloken  it  with  English  blood  : 
There's  never  a  man  in  Cumberland 
Should  ken  where  Carlisle  Castell  stood. 

"  'But  since  nae  war's  between  the  lands, 

And  there  is  peace, —  and  peace  should  be, — 
I'll  neither  harm  English  lad  nor  lass, 
And  yet  Kinmont  freed  shall  be.' 

"  He  has  called  him  forty  marchmen  bauld, 
Were  kinsmen  to  the  bauld  Buccleugh. 


"  And  as  we  crossed  the  batable  land, 
When  to  the  English  side  we  held; 
The  first  o'  men  that  we  met  wi', 
Wha  should  it  be  but  fause  Sakelde  ? 

"  '  Where  be  ye  gaun,  ye  hunters  keen  ?' 

Quo'  fause  Sakelde ;  '  come,  tell  to  me.' 
'  We  go  to  hunt  an  English  stag 
Has  trespassed  on  the  Scots  countrie.' 

" '  Where  be  ye  gaun,  ye  marshal  men  ?' 

Quo'  fause  Sakelde;  'come,  tell  me  true.' 
'  We  go  to  catch  a  rank  reiver 
Has  broken  faith  wi'  the  bauld  Buccleugh.' 

" '  Where  be  ye  gaun,  ye  mason  lads, 
Wi'  a'  your  ladders  lang  and  hie  ?' 

.   'We  gang  to  hunt  a  corbie's  nest 

That  wons  not  far  frae-  Woodhouselee. 


"  And  when  we  left  the  Stranchaw  bank, 

The  wind  began  full  loud  to  blaw, 
But  'twas  wind  and  weet,  and  fire  and  sleet, 
When  we  came  beneath  the  castell-wa'. 


154  LECTURE    FOURTH. 


"  We  crept  on  knees,  and  held  our  breath 

Till  we  placed  the  ladders  against  the  wa', 
And  sae  ready  was  Buccleugh  himself 
To  mount  the  first  before  us  a'. 

"  He  has  ta'en  the  watchman  by  the  throat, 

He  flung  him  down  upon  the  lead: 
'Had  there  not  been  peace  between  our  lands, 
Upon  the  other  side  thou  hadst  gaed.' 

"  '  Now  sound  our  trumpets,'  quo'  Buccleugh : 
'  Let's  waken  Lord  Scroope  right  merrilie. 
Then  loud  the  warden's  trumpet  blew : 
'  Oh,  wha  dare  meddle  wi'  me  ?' 

*  *  *  *  # 

"  They  thought  King  James  and  a'  his  men 
Had  won  the  house  wi'  bow  and  spear : 
It  was  but  twenty  Scots  and  ten 
That  put  a  thousand  in  sic  a  stear. 

"  Wi'  coulters  and  wi'  fore-hammers, 
We  garr'd  the  bars  bang  merrilie, 
Until  we  came  to  the  inner  prison, 
Where  Willie  Kinmont  he  did  lie. 

"  And  when  we  cam  to  the  lower  prison, 
Where  Willie  Kinmont  he  did  lie, — 
'  Oh,  sleep  ye  ?  wake  ye,  Kinmont  Willie, 
Upon  the  morn  that  thou's  to  die.' 

" '  Oh,  I  sleep  saft,  and  I  wake  aft ; 

It's  lang  since  sleeping  was  fleed  frae  me. 
Gie  my  service  back  to  my  wife  and  bairns, 
And  a'  gude  fellows  that  spier  for  me.' 

"  Then  Red  Rowan  has  hente  him  up, 
The  starkest  man  in  Teviotdale  : — 
'  Abide,  abide  now,  Red  Rowan, 
Till  of  my  Lord  Scroope  I  take  farewell. 


KINMONT    WILEIE.  155 


"  '  Farewell,  farewell,  my  gude  Lord  Scroope 

My  gude  Lord  Scroope,  farewell !'  he  cried. 
'  I'll  pay  you  for  my  lodging-mail 

When  first  we  meet  on  the  border-side.' 

"  Then  shoulder  high,  with  shout  and  cry, 

We  bore  him  down  the  ladders  lang  j 
At  every  stride  Red  Rowan  made 

I  wot  the  Kinsmen's  aims  played  clang. 

" '  Oh,  mony  a  time/  quo'  Kinmont  Willie, 

'  I  have  ridden  horse  baith  well  and  wood ; 
But  a  rougher  beast  than  Red  Rowan, 
I  ween,  my  legs  have  ne'er  bestrode. 

'And  mony  a  time,'  quo'  Kinmont  Willie, 
'I've  pricked  a  horse  out  ower  the  firs, 

But,  since  the  day  I  backed  a  steed, 
I  never  wore  sic  cumbrous  spurs.' 

"  We  scarce  had  won  the  Hanshaw  bank, 
When  a'  the  Carlisle  bells  were  rung, 
And  a  thousand  men  on  horse  and  foot 
Cam  wi'  the  keen  Lord  Scroope  along 

"  Buccleugh  has  turned  to  Eden  Water, 

Even  where  it  flowed  frae  bank  to  brim, 
And  he  has  plunged  in  wi'  a'  his  band, 

And  safely  swam  them  through  the  stream. 

"  He  turned  him  on  the  other  side, 

And  at  Lord  Scroopo  his  glove  flung  he: — 
'If  ye  like  na'  my  visit  in  merry  England, 
In  fair  Scotland  come  visit  me.' 

"All  soro  astonished  stood  Lord  Scroope; 

He  stood  as  still  as  rock  of  stane; 
He  scarcely  dared  to  trew  his  eyes 

When  through  the  water  they  had  gane. 


156  LECTURE    FOURTH. 


"'He  is  either  himself,  a  (diel  from  below;) 

Or  else  his  mother  a  witch  maun  be ; 
I  wadna'  hae'  ridden  that  wean  water 
For  a'  the  gowd  in  Christentie.' " 

As  fine  a  specimen  of  the  ancient  minstrelsy  as  can  be 
given  is  what  Coleridge  called  "  the  grand  old  ballad  of 
Sir  Patrick  Spens."  It  is  one  of  the  historical  ballads 
the  precise  occasion  of  which  is  wrapped,  however,  in 
mystery,  except  that  it  has  some  relation  to  the  Scottish 
princess  who  was  seated  on  the  throne  of  Norway,  thus 
occasioning  an  intercourse  between  those  two  countries. 

It  is  a  noble  example  of  the  unknown  minstrel's 
powers  of  description : — 

"  The  king  sits  in  Dunfermline  town, 

Drinking  the  blude-red  wine ; 
'  Oh,  where  will  I  get  a  skuly  skipper 
To  sail  this  new  ship  of  mine  ?' 

"  Oh,  np  and  spake  an  eldern  knight 

Sat  at  the  king's  right  knee : — 
'  Sir  Patrick  Spens  is  the  best  sailor 
That  ever  sailed  the  sea.' 

"  Our  king  has  written  a  braid  letter, 

And  sealed  it  with  his  hand, 

And  sent  it  to  Sir  Patrick  Spens 

Was  walking  on  the  strand. 

" '  To  Norroway,  to  Norroway 

To  Norroway  o'er  the  faim ; 
The  king's  daughter  of  Norroway, 
'Tis  thou  maun  bring  her  hame.' 

"  The  first  word  that  Sir  Patrick  read, 

Sae  loud,  loud  laugh£d  he  ; 
The  niest  word  that  Sir  Patrick  read, 
The  tear  blinded  his  e'e. 


SIRPATRICKSPENS  157 


" '  Oh,  wha  is  this  has  done  this  deed, 

And  tauld  the  king  o'  me, 
To  send  us  out,  at  this  time  o'  the  year 
To  sail  upon  the  sea? 

" '  Be  it  wind,  be  it  weet,  be  it  hail,  be  it  sleet, 

Our  ship  must  sail  the  fairn  ; 
The  king's  daughter  of  Norroway, — 
'Tis  we  must  fetch  her  hame.' 

"  They  hoysed  their  sails  on  Monenday  morn, 

Wi'  a'  the  speed  they  may ; 
They  ha'e  landed  in  Norroway, 
Upon  a  Wodensday. 

"  They  had  na'  been  a  week,  a  week, 

In  Norroway,  but  twae, 
When  that  the  lords  of  Norroway 
Began  aloud  to  say, — 

" '  Te  Seottishmen  spend  a'  our  king's  gowd, 

And  a'  our  queene's  fee.' 
'Ye  lie,  ye  lie,  ye  liars  laud, 
Pu'  laud  I  hear  ye  lie. 

"  '  For  I  brought  as  much  white  monie 

As  gars  my  men  and  me  ; 
And  I  brought  a  half-fu'  of  gude  red  gowd 
Out  ower  the  sea  wi'  me. 

" '  Make  ready,  niake  ready,  my  merry  men  a', 

Our  gude  ship  sails  the  morn;' 
'  Now  ever  alack,  my  master  dear ! 
I  fear  a  deadly  storm 

"  '  I  saw  the  new  moon,  late  yestre'en 

Wi'  the  old  moon  in  her  arm ; 
And  if  we  gang  to  sea,  master, 
I  fear  we'll  come  to  harm.' 


168  LECTURE    FOURTH. 


"  They  had  na'  sailed  a  league,  a  league, 

A  league  but  barely  three, 

When  the  lift  grew  dark,  and  the  wind  blew  loud, 
And  gurly  grew  the  sea. 

"  The  ankers  brake  and  the  topmasts  lap, 

It  was  sic  a  deadly  storm ; 
And  the  waves  came  o'er  the  broken  ship 
Till  a'  her  sides  were  torn. 

"  '  Oh,  where  will  I  get  a  gude  sailor, 

To  take  my  helm  in  hand 
Till  I  get  up  to  the  tall  topmast 
To  see  if  I  can  spy  land  ?' 

"  '  Oh,  here  am  I,  a  sailor  gude, 

To  take  the  helm  in  hand, 
Till  you  go  up  to  the  tall  topmast  : 
But  I  fear  you'll  ne'er  spy  land.' 

"  He  had  na'  gane  a  step,  a  step, — 

A  step  but  barely  ane, — 
When  a  bout  flew  out  of  (the)  goodly  ship, 
And  the  salt  sea  it  came  in. 

"  '  Gae  fetch  a  web  o'  the  silken  elaith, 

Another  o'  the  twine, 
And  wap  them  into  our  ship's  side, 
And  let  na'  the  sea  come  in.' 

"  They  fetched  a  web  o'  the  silken  elaith, 

Another  o'  the  twine, 

And  they  wnpped  them  round  that  gude  ship's 
But  still  the  sea  cam  in. 

Oh,  laith,  laith  were  our  gude  Scots  lords 

To  weet  their  cork-heeled  shoon ; 
But  lang  or  a'  the  play  was  played 

They  wat  their  hats  aboon. 


ARMSTRONG'S    GOOD-NIGHT.  159 


"  And  mony  was  the  feather-bed 

That  fluttered  on  the  faim ; 
And  mony  was  the  gude  lord's  son 
That  never  mair  cam  hame. 

"  The  ladyes  wrang  their  fingers  white, 

The  maidens  tore  their  hair, 
A'  for  the  sake  of  their  true  loves, — 
For  them  they'll  see  nae  mair. 

"  Half  ower,  half  ower  to  Heberdom 

'Tis  fifty  fathoms  deep, 
And  there  lies  gude  Sir  Patrick  Spens, 
Vi'i'  the  Scots  lords  at  his  feet." 

Let  me  take  leave  of  these  ancient  strains  with 
one  very  short  fragment, — Armstrong's  "  Good-night," — 
in  which,  if  I  have  been  presuming  too  much  upon  your 
patience,  you  may  find  a  wish  of  your  own  expressed  for 
you : — 

"  This  night  is  my  departing  night ; 

For  here  nae  longer  must  I  stay  ; 
There's  neither  friend  nor  foe  o'  mine 
But  wishes  me  away. 

"  What  I  have  done  through  lack  of  wit 

I  nevar,  never  can  recall; 
I  hope  ye're  a'  my  friends  as  yet : 
Good-night,  and  joy  be  with  you  all." 


LECTURE  V. 


Spenser's  death  and  Shakspeare's  birth  —  Influence  of  the  age  —  Inde- 
pendence of  his  imaginary  creations  —  Small  knowledge  of  the  in- 
dividual —  Unselfishness  of  Genius  —  A  spiritual  voice  in  all  time 

—  Shakspeare  traditions  —  His  birth,  A.D.  1564  —  Death,  A.D.  1616  — 
Cervantes's  death  —  Epitaph  —  Education  —  Ben  Jonson  —  Power  over 
language  —  The  Dramatic  Art  congenial  to  his  genius  —  Kenilworth 
and  Queen  Elizabeth  —  Shakspeare  in  London  —  The  Armada  —  His 
patriotism  and  loyalty  —  Subjectiveness  of  the  modern  European 
mind  —  Shakspeare  and  Bacon  —  Venus  and  Adonis  —  Lucrece  —  The 
Dramas  —  The  Sonnets  —  Dramatic  Art  in  England  —  Sacred  Dramas 

—  Mysteries  and  Moralities  —  Heywood  —  Minor  Dramatists  —  "  The 
gentle   Shakspeare"  —  The    acting   drama  —  Primitive    Theatres  —  • 
Modern  adaptations  —  Lear  and  Richard  III.  —  The  supernatural  of 
the  Drama  —  Macbeth  —  The  Tempest  his  last  poem. 

AT  the  very  time  when,  in  an  obscure  lodging  in  Lon- 
don, the  gentle  spirit  of  Edmund  Spenser  was  passing 
away  from  its  fresh  sorrows  and  the  worldly  troubles 
so  meekly  complained  of  in  various  passages  of  his 
poems,  there  was  dwelling  under  some  humble  roof  of 
the  same  city  the  mightiest  of  his  many  contemporaries 
among  the  poets,  —  WILLIAM  SHAKSPEARE.  The  begin- 
ning of  his  dramatic  career  dates  about  the  time  of  the 
publication  of  the  "  Fairy  Queen,"  not  far  from  the  close 
of  the  sixteenth  century.  The  term  of  his  authorship 
belongs  not,  like  Spenser's,  exclusively  to  the  reign  of 

160 


INFLUENCE    OF    THE    AGE.  161 


Queen  Elizabeth,  but,  beginning  in  that  reign,  it  survives 
during  a  portion  of  that  of  her  successor,  James  I. 

At  the  outset  of  these  lectures  I  took  occasion  to  re- 
cognise as  one  of  the  offices  of  criticism  to  trace  the 
correspondence  between  the  spirit  of  a  great  author  and 
that  of  his  age  and  country,  as  well  as  the  course  of  his 
personal  life.  The  historical  and  biographical  illustrations 
have  a  value  which  no  careful  student  should  overlook; 
for  often  he  will  find  that  a  knowledge  of  the  temper  of 
the  times,  the  characteristics  of  the  age,  and  the  indi- 
vidual position  of  the  author,  will  give  a  deeper  insight 
into  his  genius.  But,  important  as  this  process  of  criti- 
cism is,  it  is  essentially  subordinate  to  the  higher  func- 
tions of  criticism, — the  philosophy  of  judging  the  crea- 
tions of  genius  by  immutable  principles  of  truth,  above 
the  range  of  all  that  is  local,  personal,  or  temporary.  It 
is  a  prime  element  of  the  best  order  of  intellectual 
endowment  to  dwell,  sunlike,  in  a  light  of  its  own;  and 
he  who  seeks  to  illustrate  by  external  and  reflected  rays 
alone  shuts  his  eyes  to  the  chief  source  of  its  illumina- 
tion. 

The  first  principle  which  meets  my  reflections  upon 
Shakspeare  is  the  independence  of  his  imaginative  crea- 
tions of  all  the  incidents  which  are  valuable  in  the  appre- 
ciation of  most  works  of  genius.  We  know,  indeed, 
the  age  and  the  character  of  the  age  in  which  he  lived ; 
but,  as  if  to  teach  the  principle  just  stated,  the  materials 
of  knowledge  of  Shakspeare's  personal  history  have  in  all 
important  particulars  been  swept  away.  We  do  not  even 
know  how  to  spell  his  name, — a  question  of  orthography 
on  which  recently  in  England  there  has  been  a  very 
animated  discussion,  occasioned  by  the  discovery  of  one 

VOL.  I.  11 


162  LECTURE    FIFTH. 


of  the  very  rare  autographs  of  the  poet;  and  the  argu- 
ment goes  pretty  strongly  to  show  that  the  usual  way  is  a 
wrong  way. 

Of  the  man  Shakspeare  we  know  literally  nothing  that 
is  of  any  worth  for  the  exposition  of  his  character  as  a 
poet.  The  letters  which  made  up  his  name  are  far  less 
symbolical  of  the  personal  existence  of  a  human  being 
than  of  the  creative  origin  of  Hamlet,  Macbeth,  and 
Lear,  and  Cordelia,  or  Juliet  and  Desdemona,  and  the 
other  realities  that  rise  up  in  our  thoughts  at  the  sight  or 
sound  of  the  word  "  Shakspeare."  From  his  individual 
history  nothing  ever  intrudes  to  disturb  the  perfect  im- 
pression made  by  those  inventions  into  which  he  seems 
to  have  transferred  his  whole  nature, — this  self-forget- 
fulness,  this  unconscious  self-devotion,  bearing  witness  to 
the  perfection  of  his  creative  powers.  This  transmigra- 
tion, as  it  were,  of  a  great  poet's  spirit  into  the  cha- 
racters he  invents  or  the  ideas  he  embodies  has  furnished 
an  eloquent  living  divine  an  apposite  illustration  in 
expounding  the  Christian  duty  of  self-sacrifice ;  and  I 
quote  the  passage  for  its  reflex  connection  with  the  sub- 
ject now  under  discussion : — 

;-  AVhatever  has  been  truly  excellent  among  the  pro- 
ducts of  the  human  mind  has  sprung  from  the  very  same 
source  of  all  good,  both  in  the  natural  and  in  the  moral 
world. — the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice.  Look,  for  example, 
at  Poetry.  The  might  of  the  imagination  is  manifested 
by  its  launching  forth  from  the  petty  creek,  where  the  ac- 
cidents of  birth  moored  it,  into  the  wide  ocean  of  being, 
— by  its  going  abroad  into  the  world  around,  passing  into 
whatever  it  meets  with,  animating  it  and  becoming 
one  with  it.  This  complete  union  and  identification  of 


SMALL    KNOWLEDGE    OF    THE    INDIVIDUAL. 


the  poet  with  his  poem — this  suppression  of  his  own  in- 
dividual, insulated  consciousness,  with  its  narrowness  of 
thought  and  pettinesses  of  feeling — is  what  we  admire  in 
the  great  masters  of  that  which,  for  this  reason,  we  justly 
call  classical  poetry,  as  representing  that  which  is  sym- 
bolical and  universal, — not  that  which  is  merely  occasional 
and  peculiar.  This  gives  them  that  majestic  calmness 
which  still  breathes  upon  us  from  the  statues  of  their 
gods.  This  invests  their  works  with  that  lucid,  trans- 
parent atmosphere  wherein  every  form  stands  out  in  per- 
fect distinctness,  only  beautified  by  the  distance  which 
idealizes  it.  This  has  delivered  those  works  from  the 
casualties  of  time  and  space,  and  has  lifted  them  up,  like 
stars,  into  the  pure  firmament  of  thought;  so  that  they 
do  not  shine  on  one  spot  alone,  nor  fade  like  earthly 
flowers,  but  journey  on  from  clime  to  clime,  shedding 
the  light  of  beauty  on  generation  after  generation.  The 
same  quality  amounting  to  a  total  extinction  of  his 
own  selfish  being,  so  that  his  spirit  became  a  mighty 
organ  through  which  nature  gave  utterance  to  the  full 
diapason  of  her  notes,  is  what  we  wonder  at  in  our  own 
great  dramatist,  and  is  the  groundwork  of  all  his  other 
powers;  for  At  is  only  when  purged  of  selfishness  that 
the  intellect  becomes  fitted  for  receiving  the  inspirations 
of  genius/'J 

The  loss,  therefore,  of  biographical  information  respect- 
ing the  English  Dramatist  ceases  to  be  to  me  a  subject 
of  regret,  because  his  genius  was  not  swayed  by  time,  or 
place,  or  fortune.  It  is  a  small  conception  which  presents 
Shakspeare  to  our  minds  in  his  individual  personality, 
limited  to  one  tract  of  the  earth,  and  one  tract  of  time, 
and  to  one  little  island,  one  little  half-century.  To  the 


164  LECTURE    FIFTH. 


truer  thought  the  idea  of  Shakspeare  comes  as  the  idea 
of  a  voice, —  a  spiritual  voice,  mighty  and  multitudinous, 
like  the  ocean's  voice  in  mid-Atlantic,  attuned  to  no  age 
and  echoing  to  no  shore; — and,v|ike  ocean  too,  taking  its 
colour  from  its  own  unfathomed  deep  and  not  from  the 
soil  of  the  lands  it  beats  upon)  I  repeat  that  I  know 
of  not  a  single  incident  in  the  obscure  story  of  Shak- 
speare's  life  of  significancy  for  the  study  of  his  poetry. 
Yet  there  has  prevailed  on  this  point — naturally,  too — an 
insatiable  curiosity,  the  fruit  of  which  has  been  the  ac- 
cumulation of  as  much  rubbish  as  was  ever  raked  into 
one  heap  by  the  industry  of  one  impulse.  I  would  be 
the  last  to  attempt  to  brush  away  a  literary  tradition,  no 
matter  how  remote  or  how  frail  the  testimony  on  which  it 
rested,  did  I  not  detect  the  feature  of  a  falsehood.  In  the 
absence  of  authentic  materials  for  a  biography  of  Shak- 
speare, conjecture  has  been  busy,  with  a  licentiousness  of 
speculation  which  makes  it  necessary  to  take  the  stand 
of  unbelief.  It  is,  of  course,  not  my  intention  to  spend 
more  of  your  time  on  this  part  of  my  subject,  dismissing 
it  as  worthless :  one  or  two  specimens  of  this  gossip  will 
abundantly  serve  the  purpose. 

The  absurd  story  of  Shakspeare  having  earned  a  liveli- 
hood by  holding  horses  at  the  theatre  door  was  originally 
stated  with  an  imposing  array  of  the  oral  tradition  on 
which  it  rested.  Its  claims  to  belief  may  be  best  judged 
of  simply  by  quoting  that  authority.  Sir  William  Dave- 
nant  told  it  Mr.  Betterton,  who  communicated  it  to  Mr. 
Howe;  Mr.  Howe  told  it  to  Mr.  Pope,  and  Mr.  Pope  told  it 
to  Dr.  Newton,  and  Dr.  Xewton  told  it  to  a  gentleman — 
probably  Dr.  Johnson — who  told  it  to  a  man  who,  some 
two  hundred  years  after  the  alleged  event,  put  it  in  print 


SUAKSPEARE'S    BIRTH    AND    DEATH.  165 


in  a  book,  which,  I  may  add,  is  remarkable  for  having 
no  less  than  two  falsehoods  incorporated  in  the  few 
capital  words  of  its  title-page.  The  tradition  of  Shak- 
speare's  deer-stealing  adventure  and  his  consequent  flight 
from  a  criminal  prosecution  has  a  little  better  claim  to  be- 
lief, but  still  with  several  improbabilities  which  make  it 
safer  to  leave  it  to  the  receptacle  of  the  fabulous. 

All  that  is  known  with  certainty  of  Shakspeare  is 
known  to  every  one.  His  birth,  25th  of  April,  in  the  year 
1564,  at  Stratford-upon-the-Avon ;  his  youthful  mar- 
riage; his  removal  to  London,  and  theatrical  career, — 
an  actor,  a  manager,  and  a  dramatic  poet ;  his  return  to 
his  native  town  a  prosperous  gentleman ;  his  death  in  the 
year  1616,  on  the  anniversary  day  of  his  birth,  and  on 
the  selfsame  day  on  which,  in  a  remote  region  of 
Europe,  the  great  master  of  Spanish  fiction,  Cervantes, 
breathed  his  last.  In  the  church  in  which  the  child 
Shakspeare  had,  no  doubt,  been  trained  to  worship,  his 
body  was  buried,  beneath  an  inscription  strong  with  the 
powers  of  his  pen  and  with  an  active  energy  to  guard  for 
centuries  the  sanctity  of  the  grave ;  for,  amid  all  the 
vapid  enthusiasm  of  Stratford  jubilees,  and  such  sense- 
less adoration  as  led  one  of  his  admirers  to  whitewash 
the  antique  bust  upon  his  monument,  if  ever  rash  mortal 
dreamed  of  transferring  the  mouldering  remains  to  a 
prouder  mausoleum,  there  issued,  as  it  were,  from  the 
very  sepulchre  a  calm  but  appalling  voice  : — 

"  Good  friend,  for  Jesus'  sake,  forbear 
To  dig  the  bones  enclosed  here. 
Blest  be  the  man  that  spares  these  stones, 
And  curst  be  he  that  moves  my  bones  !" 


166  LECTURE    FIFTH. 


Iii  the  village  church  let  the  honoured  dust  sleep  till 
its  eternal  waking  in  quietness,  the  stream  that  sounded 
on  his  ear  in  childhood  forever  flowing  near.  While  the 
genius  of  Shakspeare  has  gone,  like  the  ashes  of  Wiclif's 
body,  scattered  first  into  the  Avon,  from  Avon  into 
Severn,  from  Severn  into  the  narrow  seas,  then  into  the 
main  ocean,  and  thus  dispersed  all  the  world  over,  the  fit 
place  for  his  perishable  body  is  the  grave  that  first  re- 
ceived it ;  better  than  a  stately  sepulchre  in  the  company 
of  England's  dead  poets,  beneath  an  abbey's  roof.  In  the 
words  of  one  who  knew  him  in  his  bodily  presence, — 

"  Under  this  curled  marble  of  thino  own, 
Sleep,  rare  tragedian !  Bhakspeare,  sleep  alone  !" 

I  have  thus  purposely  disposed  in  a  very  cursory  man- 
ner of  the  facts  of  Shakspeare's  life.  But,  while  I  would 
avoid  the  fruitless  and  illusive  process  of  conjecture 
founded  upon  imperfect  testimony, — the  fitful  flash  of  spe- 
culation,— I  am  not  disposed  to  turn  away  from  this  portion 
of  my  subject  without  endeavouring  to  cast  upon  it  the 
meek  light  of  imagination.  The  first  twenty-three  years 
of  Shakspeare's  life — nearly  half  of  his  mortal  existence, 
and  a  precious  part  of  it — were  spent  in  the  place  of  his 
birth.  A  good  deal  of  disquisition  has  been,  it  seems  to 
me,  somewhat  vainly  expended  on  the  question  of  his 
learning,  and  a  general  impression  has  been  the  result 
that  he  was  an  uneducated  prodigy ;  in  support  of  which 
opinion  is  a  well-known  phrase  of  Ben  Jonson's,  attribut- 
ing to  his  illustrious  contemporary  "small  Latin  and  less 
Greek."  Ben  Jonson  was  a  scholar  of  profound  classical 
erudition ;  and,  if  we  were  to  take  his  standard  and  apply 
it  to  the  educated  community  in  general,  I  apprehend  that 


HIS    EDUCATION.  107 


many  of  us,  under  his  Latin  and  Greek  measurement, 
might  come  out  with  a  more  diminutive  result  than  that 
which  has  been  perverted  to  sanction  the  opinion  of  Shak- 
speare's  deficiency.  From  the  respectable  condition  of 
his  family,  and  still  more  from  the  easy  and  natural  tone 
of  even  his  early  productions, — that  tone  of  learning  in- 
corporated into  the  mind  which  it  is  so  hard  for  an  unedu- 
cated man  to  affect, — I  have  no  doubt  that  Shakspeare's 
acquirements,  so  far  from  being  below  the  standard  of 
ordinary  education,  were  such  as  to  entitle  him  to  rank 
among  the  well-educated,  even  though  afterwards,  in  his 
intercourse  with  the  literature  of  other  languages, —  the 
ancient  and  the  foreign, —  he  had  recourse  to  the  se- 
condary medium  of  translation.  But  how  utterly  in- 
significant does  such  an  inquiry  become  when,  turning 
from  the  matter  of  mere  tuition,  we  strive  after  some 
conception,  imperfect  as  it  must  be,  of  the  self-formative 
process  of  Shakspeare's  mind, — or,  to  express  myself  with 
more  truth,  the  growth  of  his  genius  under  the  various 
ripening  influences  given  for  its  development,  not  less 
than  the  implanting  of  its  primal  germ  and  elements ! 
When,  reasoning  of  Shakspeare  as  of  other  men,  we  seek 
for  the  ordinary  causes  which  first  suggest  themselves,  to 
account,  for  instance,  for  his  power  over  the  language, 
for  his  description  of  the  visible  outward  world,  and  for 
that  which  distinguishes  him  above  all  other  authors, — 
his  knowledge  of  human  nature,  his  familiarity  with  the 
visionary  region  of  the  heart, — how  inadequate  are  such 
causes  to  explain  the  wondrous  results  !  To  say,  indeed, 
that  in  early  life  he  was  a  thoughtful  and  susceptible 
observer  of  all  that  could  enter  the  avenues  of  sense,  all 
earthly  and  all  skyey  influences, — that  he  meditated  on  the 


168  LECTURE    FIFTH. 


hidden  wealth  of  the  English  language, — that  he  was  a 
student  of  the  emotions  and  manners  of  his  fellow-men, — 
and,  more  than  all,  that  he  held  deep  and  unbroken  com- 
munion with  his  own  spirit, — would  be  to  assert  no  more 
than  reason  warrants.  But  reason  at  the  same  time  tells 
us  that  more  yet  is  needed  to  solve  the  mystery  of  the 
Stratford  boy.  But  it  is  in  vain  :  nothing  is  equal  to  it ; 
there  is  a  depth  which  neither  empiricism,  nor  experi- 
ment, nor  observation,  nor  theory,  can  fathom.  Science 
is  baffled,  and  all  the  elaborate  statistics  of  education  give 
no  light.  Where  did  Shakspeare  gather  the  stores  that 
he  poured  forth  on  an  astonished  world  ?  Was  it  at  Strat- 
ford ?  was  it  at  London  ?  was  it  in  school  ? — in  the  throng 
of  the  market  or  the  highway  ?  Was  it  in  each  or  in  all 
of  these  ?  More,  more  is  needed ;  and,  when  an  inquiry 
of  this  kind  is  instituted,  we  feel  disposed  to  fall  back  to 
the  simple  belief  of  the  fine  image  of  Shakspeare's  child- 
hood in  Gray's  "Progress  of  Poesy  :" — 

"Far  from  the  sun  and  summer  gnle, 
In  thy  green  lap,  was  nature's  darling  laid, 
What  time  where  lucid  Avon  strayed. 
To  him  the  mighty  mother  did  unveil 
Her  awful  face.     The  dauntless  child 
Stretched  forth  his  little  arms  and  smiled." 

If  the  growth  of  Shakspeare's  transcendent  powers 
defies  all  speculation,  there  is  yet  reason  to  believe  that 
we  may  trace  some  influences  which  gave  his  genius  a 
direction  to  the  form  of  dramatic  composition.  That  this 
is  the  species  of  authorship  eminently  congenial  to  him 
is  manifest  to  the  least  reflective  on  the  unequalled  facility 
with  which  he  transfused  himself,  as  it  were,  into  the 
very  character  and  life  of  his  inventions.  The  town  of 


KKXIL  WORTH.  169 

Stratford  is  known  to  have  been  visited,  during  the  open- 
ing years  of  Shakspeare's  manhood,  by  several  sets  of 
players  in  the  service  of  different  noblemen,  especially 
the  Earl  of  Leicester,  whose  name  suggests  the  mention 
of  a  fact  of  some  interest,  from  its  probable  connection 
with  Shakspeare's  boyhood.  Between  Kenilworth  Castle, 
the  residence  of  that  nobleman,  and  the  town  of  Strat- 
ford, the  distance  is  that  of  but  a  few  miles ;  and,  when 
the  noble  residence  was  lighted  with  the  sumptuous  dis- 
play of  the  princely  festivities  with  which  the  visit  of 
the  Queen  was  welcomed  by  her  unworthy  and  unprinci- 
pled favourite,  Shakspeare  was  a  youth,  in  the  full  flush 
of  his  twelfth  year;  and,  amid  the  theories  and  con- 
jectures to  fill  the  blank  of  the  unknown  story  of  his  life, 
I  know  of  none  more  plausible  than  his  presence  on  that 
animated  occasion.  It  was  a  scene  everyway  calculated 
to  enkindle  the  sparks  of  youthful  enthusiasm  and  genius. 
There  was  the  sovereign,  (and  it  was  an  age  when  all  took 
de-light  in  the  sentiment  of  personal  loyalty  to  the  monarch, 
— and  that  monarch  was  a  woman, — without  pausing  to 
question  the  wisdom  of  that  instinct  of  a  dutiful  and 
loving  subject ;)  'there  were  the  nobles  who  accompanied 
her  on  those  stately  progresses  with  which,  in  various 
quarters  of  the  realm,  she  won  the  affections  of  the 
people  by  an  almost  social  intercourse.  During  the 
Queen's  visit  to  Kenilworth  there  were  songs  and  ballads, 
recitations  of  the  old  romances,  the  chaunting  of  the 
minstrelsy,  and,  more  than  all,  the  dramatic  pageants 
elaborately  prepared  to  crown  the  festivities.  When  we 
think  of  what  was  transpiring  at  Kenilworth,  a  little 
space  away  from  the  home  of  the  boy  Shakspeare,  it 
might  almost  be  said  that  we  know  that  he  was  there.  It 


170  LECTURE    FIFTH. 


is  to  be  regretted  that,  in  the  work  of  fiction  in  which  the 
imagination  of  the  most  successful  novelist  of  modern 
times  has  revived  the  long-buried  splendour  of  Kenil- 
worth,  advantage  was  not  taken  of  the  probability  I  have 
alluded  to,  instead  of  the  anachronism  of  referring  to 
the  achievements  of  Shakspeare's  mature  years.  Scott's 
memory  of  his  own  childhood  and  youth  was  vivid; 
and  I  know  of  no  finer  theme  for  his  imagination, 
strengthened  by  deep  self-communion,  than  to  have  pre- 
sented the  youthful  poet  mingling  with  the  throng  at  the 
castle  of  the  Earl  of  Leicester, — a  thoughtful  boy,  firing 
his  genius  by  the  light  that  blazed  around  the  Virgin 
Queen. 

The  same  year  in  which  it  is  supposed  Shakspeare  left 
his  native  place  for  a  residence  in  London  was  a  period 
in  the  national  history  of  England;  for  it  was  the  time 
when  stout  English  hearts  and  the  tempestuous  alliance 
of  the  elements  had  not  only  saved  the  soil  from  the  pol- 
lution of  a  foreign  invasion,  but  had  driven  the  scattered 
fragments  of  the  Armada,  not  back  to  the  cairn  ports 
of  Spain,  but  as  far  north  as  the  stormy  latitude  of  the 
Hebrides.  There  must  have  been  then  a  high  patriotic 
fervour  kindling  and  filling  each  true  and  ample  heart. 
I  speak  of  these  things  because  I  cannot  for  a  moment 
hesitate  in  believing  that  in  this  lofty  emotion  no  heart 
more  largely  sh'ared  than  the  large  heart  that  beat  in  the 
breast  of  William  Shakspeare.  I  should  not  question  its 
influence  upon  his  genius,  even  if  I  did  not  see  in  his 
dramas  signs  enough  of  his  intense  nationality.  He  was 
too  right-minded — too  right-hearted  in  his  genius — to  be 
other  than  a  lover  of  his  own  country  and  its  men. 
There  was  in  him  no  morbid  and  false-hearted  dis- 


SHAKSPEARE'S    PATRIOTISM    AND    LOYALTY.      171 


loyalty  to  the  soil  that  wrapped  the  bones  of  his  fathers ; 
no  fantastic  cosmopolitism  or  devotion  to  foreign  climes ; 
no  such  thing  as  dallying  with  Italian  skies  or  making 
court  to  the  snowy  pinnacles  of  the  Alps;  but  not  the 
least  manifestation  of  his  genius  was  his  profound  and 
single-hearted  love  for  England.  The  intrepid  spirit  that 
awaited  the  assault  of  Spain  speaks  in  the  lines  in  King 
John : — Falconbridge  proclaiming, — 

"  This  England  never  did,  nor  never  shall, 
Lie  at  the  proud  foot  of  a  conqueror. 
*****  * 

"  Come  the  three  corners  of  the  world  in  arms, 
And  we  shall  shock  them." 

And  in  the  whole  range  of  prose  and  verse  there  ia 
probably  no  passage  which  comes  so  near  to  the  inspired 
patriotism  of  the  Bible  poetry — setting  forth  the  glory 
and  sublimity  of  Jerusalem — as  the  celebrated  panegyric 
on  England  in  Richard  the  Second,  fitly  spoken  by  the 
dying  lips  of  "time-honoured  Lancaster:" — 

"  This  royal  throne  of  kings,  this  sceptred  isle, 
This  earth  o'f  majesty,  this  seat  of  Mars, 
This  other  Eden,  demi-paradise; 
This  fortress,  built  by  nature  for  herself, 
Against  infection  and  the  hand  of  war; 
This  happy  breed  of  men,  this  little  world; 
This  precious  stone,  set  in  the  silver  sea, 
"Which  serves  it  in  the  office  of  a  wall, 
Or  as  a  moat  defensive  to  a  house, 
Against  the  envy  of  less  happier  lands ; 
This  blessed  plot,  this  earth,  this  realm,  this  England." 

It  might  be  expected  that  an  intense  nationality  and 
loyalty  to  the  government,  as  represented  in  the  person 


172  LECTUr,  E    YITTH. 


of  the  monarch,  should,  when  these  sentiments  were  as 
fervid  as  in  the  days  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  vividly  affect 
the  spirit  of  literature,  and  especially  the  dramatic  lite- 
rature, as  placed  in  close  contact  with  popular  emotions. 
It  may  accordingly  be  observed  not  only  in  such  pas- 
sages as  those  just  quoted;  but  the  heart  and  the  imagi- 
nation of  Shakspeare's  most  eminent  contemporary,  Ben 
Jonson,  are  full  of  the  same  devotion  to  England  and 
to  England's  queen:  as  in  his  fine  lines: — 

"  May  still  this  island  be  called  fortunate, 
And  rugged  treason  tremble  at  the  sound 
When  fame  sha^l  speak  it  with  an  emphasis ; 
Let  foreign  polity  be  dull  as  lead, 
And  pale  invasion  come  with  half  a  heart, 
When  he  but  looks  upon  her  blessed  soil ; 
The  throat  of  war  be  stopped  within  her  land, 
And  turtle-footed  peace  dance  fairy  rings 
About  her  court,  where  never  may  there  come 
Suspect  or  danger,  but  all  trust  and  safety." 

I  have  deemed  it  one  element,  though  a  subordinate 
one,  in  the  true  appreciation  of  Shakspeare's  genius, — 
the  idea  of  the  relation  subsisting  between  it  and  the 
particular  period  of  his  country's  history.  But  he  was 
more  than  the  representative  of  the  mind  of  England  at 
a  certain  time.  ''He  may  be  contemplated  as  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  European  mind, — the  type  of  modern 
intellect  as  contrasted  with  the  intellect  of  antiquity^ 
In  suggesting  that  Shakspeare  is  to  be  viewed  not  only 
in  relation  to  England  and  to  his  times, — the  actual  half- 
century  of  his  life  passing  from  the  sixteenth  into  the 
seventeenth  century, — but  in  relation  to  the  whole  conti- 
nent of  Europe  and  to  modern  ages,  I  am  indebted  to 


SUBJECTIVEXESS    OF    THE    MODERN    MIXD.         173 


the  philosophical  thought  of  an  accomplished  English 
divine,  who,  in  a  recent  series  of  eloquent  discourses  in 
the  University  of  Cambridge,  alluding  to  the  peculiar  habit 
of  thought  which  has  marked  the  three  last  centuries, 
and  especially  in  Protestant  countries,  goes  on  to  say: — 
"  It  has  often  been  observed  that  what  peculiarly  distin- 
guishes the  modern  European  mind  is  its  predominant 
s  as  contrasted  with  the  greater  oJ/ecfuwwii 
of  former  ages.  This  pervades  all  the  forms  of  life,  all 
the  regions  of  thought.  There  has  been  a  far  deeper  self- 
consciousness,  which  has  often  approached  to  a  self-de- 
vouring disease;  there  has  been  a  more  minute  self-analy- 
sis, a  more  piercing  self-anatomy.  Speculation  has  turned : 
its  eye  inward, — has  become  more  and  more  reflective.  If 
we  cast  a  look  on  the  two  main  provinces  of  intellect  in  the 
great  age  which  followed  the  Reformation,  we  find  that  iu 
philosophy  the  grand  achievement  of  that  age  was  the  puri- 
fying the  method  of  investigation,  the  gaining  a  deeper  in- 
sight into  the  laws  of  thought On  the  other  hand, 

what  distinguishes  the  great  poet  of  the  age  subsequent 
to  the  Reformation  is — as  has  been  repeated  a  thousand 
times — his  knowledge  of  human  nature.  That  is  to  say, 
he  is  not  contented,  like  earlier  poets,  to  represent  men 
as  acting  and  suffering  at  critical  seasons  under  the  sway 
of  passion :  he.  leads  us  into  their  hearts  and  shows  us 
the  warfare  raging  there;  not  merely  the  calmness  or  the 
suffering  of  the  surface, — the  rolling  and  rushing  of  the 
waves  :  he  plunges  down  into  the  depths,  and  enables  us 
to  discern  what  is  bubbling  up  and  boiling  in  the  abyss. 
Herein,  too,  as  he  is  the  master,  so  is  he  the  representa- 
tive, of  modern  poetry,  of  which  the  general  character 
has  in  like  manner  been  reflective  instead  of  instinctive  " 


174  EECTUKE    FIFTH. 


There  seems,  to  my  mind,  to  be  much  of  the  comprehen- 
sive grasp  of  a  true  philosophy  in  this  attempt  to  define 
the  intellectual  position  of  Bacon  and  of  Shakspeare  as 
the  representatives  of  modern  European  intellect  in  its 
two  great  departments, — science  and  poetry. 

In  a  few  years  after  Shakspeare's  removal  to  London 
he  published  his  earlier  writings,  which  presented  him 
as  a  poet  before  his  appearance  as  a  dramatic  poet. 
These  were  the  -short  poems  of  "Venus  and  Adonis"  and 
"  Lucrece."  The  character  of  these  productions  is  not 
such  as  to  make  it  necessary  for  me  to  pause  upon  them. 
Their  intrinsic  merit  is  no  doubt  considerable,  but  at  the 
same  time  not  sufficient  to  have  given  their  author  a 
fame  at  all  proportionate  to  his  more  mature  works. 
Their  chief  interest  is  probably  derived  from  the  reflected 
glory  of  his  dramatic  authorship;  and  there  is,  therefore, 
the  less  occasion  to  judge  them  independently  than  to 
consider  whether  they  gave  promise  of  the  great  achieve- 
ments of  his  genius.  It  may  be  questioned  whether  any 
one — the  most  familiar  with  the  spirit  of  the  Shak- 
spearian  drama — could  by  internal  evidence  conjecture 
the  authorship  of  the  early  poems.  Unquestionably 
there  may  be  discerned  his  exuberance  of  fancy,  the 
imaginative  energy,  as  manifested  by  the  power  of 
spreading  any  ruling  feeling  or  passion  so  as  to  give  its 
own  colour  to  all  that  surrounds  it,  and  of  throwing  him- 
self into  his  creations.  They  are  expressive  of  that 
untried  period  of  genius  when  it  has  not  yet  acquired 
that  composed  consciousness  which  familiarity  with  its 
own  action  gives.  The  strong  figure  by  which  Coleridge 
criticized  these  poems  was  that  in  them  "  the  creative 
power  and  the  intellectual  energy  wrestle  as  in  a  war-em- 


VENUS    AND    ADONIS.  175 


brace  "  There  is  indeed,  with  all  the  luxuriance  of 
imagery,  the  condensation  of  thought  which  always  was 
one  great  element  of  his  strength.  But  what  strikes  me 
more  than  aught  else  in  these  early  productions  is  the 
manifestation  of  that  imperial  command  over  the  lan- 
guage, which  caused  it  to  serve  him  as  it  never  did  other 
mortal  speaking  English  words. 

Not  unfrequently  the  turn  of  fancy  and  of  words 
recall,  by  a  delicate  parallelism,  some  more  familiar  pas- 
sages in  the  dramas,  as  when  Venus. addresses  Adonis: — 

"Bid  me  discourse  :  I  will  enchant  thine  ear, 
Or,  like  a  fairy,  trip  upon  the  green, 
Or,  like  a  nymph  with  long  dishevelled  hair, 
Pance  on  the  sands,  and  yet  no  footing  seen. 
Love  is  a  spirit  all  compact  of  fire, 
Not  gross  to  sink,  but  light,  and  will  aspire." 

The  imagery  associates  itself  at  once  with  the  exquisite 
lines  in  Prospero's  address  to  his  fairy  ministers : — 

"  Ye  elves  of  hills,  brooks,  standing  lakes,  and  groves. 
And  ye,  that  on  the  sands  with  printless  foot 
Do  chase  the. ebbing  Neptune,  and  do  fly  him 
"\Vhen  he  comes  back." 

/ 

These  poems — the  very  firstlings  of  his  heart  (to 
appropriate  to  them  one  of  his  own  phrases) — abound 
in  that  naturalness  and  simplicity  of  language  for  which 
Shakspeare's  diction  is  eminent,  and  which,  exempting  it 
from  limitation  and  obsoleteness,  appropriates  it  to  all  time. 
It  is  this  quality  which  gives  perpetuity  to  such  a  stanza 
as  the  following,  on  which  it  would  be  impossible  to  pro- 
nounce whether  it  was  composed  as  early  as  the  sixteenth 
century  or  as  late  as  the  nineteenth.  It  is  descrip- 


176  LECTURE    FIFTH. 


tive  of    Venus   mourning    over  the     lifeless    body    of 
Adonis  : — 

"  She  looks  upon  his  lips,  and  they  are  pale  ! 

She  takes  him  by  the  hand,  and  that  is  cold ! 
She  whispers  in  his  ear  a  heavy  tale ; 

As  if  they  heard  the  woeful  words  she  told. 
She  lifts  the  coffer-lids  that  close  his  eyes, 
When,  lo  !  two  lamps,  burnt  out  in,  darkness  lies." 

Or,  where  he  expresses — as  so  constantly  in  the  plays — 
a  moral  reflection,  in  an  apostrophe  to  Opportunity : — 

"  The  patient  dies  while  the  physician  sleeps  ; 
The  orphan  pines  while  the  oppressor  feeds ; 
Justice  is  feasting  while  the  widow  weeps  ; 
Advice  is  sporting  while  infection  breeds : 
Thou  grant'st  no  time  for  charitable  deeds." 

Of  the  poems  of  Shakspeare, — taking  that  word  in  a 
very  narrow  sense  as  contrasted  with  his  plays, — the  most 
remarkable  are  the  sonnets.  It  is  a  most  mysterious  col- 
lection ;  and  the  mystery  which  envelops  it  seems  to  be 
impenetrable  to  all  the  ingenuity  of  the  commentators. 
It  is  likely  to  continue  a  vexed  question  whom  they  are 
addressed  to.  The  address  purports  to  be  made  to  a  male 
friend, — a  certain  "  Mr.  W.  H.,"  as  he  is  enigmatically 
described  on  the  title-page.  It  is  surely  no  easy  task  to 
decipher  two  initials  employed  two  hundred  years  ago, 
especially  as  there  is  such  destitution  of  knowledge  of  the 
author's  personal  history.  By  some  it  has  been  con- 
jectured that  the  person  addressed  was  the  Earl  of 
Southampton,  Shakspeare' s  early  patron,  to  whom  his 
first  poems  were  dedicated ;  by  others,  (the  opinion  most 
plausible,)  William  Herbert,  Earl  of  Pembroke.  It  is 
the  suggestion  of  another  commentator  that  "Mr.  W.  H." 


THE    SONNETS.  177 


was  a  woman ;  and,  by  another,  not  only  a  woman,  but 
that  "  Mr.  W.  H.,"  being  interpreted,  typified  Queen 
Elizabeth.  So  that,  amid  this  variety  of  vain  con- 
jectures, I  do  not  see  that  any  better  conclusion  can  be 
reached  than  the  opinion  of  one  of  the  most  intelligent 
of  the  Shakspearian  commentators,  deeply  versed  in  the 
early  English  drama.  "After  all,"  is  his  remark,  "  what 
Lord  Byron  says  of  Junius  is  true  concerning  the 
object  to  whom  Shakspeare's  sonnets  are  principally  ad- 
dressed:"— 

"  I've  an  hypothesis, — tis  quite  my  own : 
'Tis  that  what  Junius  we  are  wont  to  call 
Was  really,  truly,  nobody  at  all !" 

But  the  chief  mystery  in  the  sonnets  is  that  they  are 
conceived  in  a  rapturous,  amatory  strain,  not  at  all  con- 
cordant with  the  sober,  sedate  tone  of  that  rough  senti- 
ment, masculine  friendship.  Their  poetical  excellence  is 
such  as  to  make  them  not  unworthy  of  their  illustrious 
authorship.  The  deep  thought,  the  rich  imagery,  and 
the  majestic  speech  of  Shakspeare  are  there.  How  ex- 
quisitely worthy  of  him  who  told  of  Macbeth' s  "  way  of 
life,  fallen  into  the  sere  and  yellow  leaf,"  is  such  a  sonnet 
as  this ! — 

"  That  time  of  year  thou  mayest  in  mo  behold 
When  yellow  leaves,  or  none,  or  few,  do  hang 
Upon  those  boughs  which  stake  against  the  cold 
Bare  ruined  choirs,  where  late  the  sweet  birds  sang 
In  me  thou  seest  the  twilight  of  such  day 
As  after  sunset  fadeth  in  the  west, 
Which,  by-and-by,  black  night  doth  take  away, — 
Death's  second  self,  that  seals  up  all  in  rest! 
In  me  thou  seest  the  glowing  of  such  fire 
That  on  the  ashes  of  his  youth  doth  lie, 
VOL.  I.  12 


178  LECTURE    FIFTH. 


As  the  death-bed  whereon  it  must  expire, 
Consumed  with  that  which  it  was  nourished  by ! 
This  thou  perceiv'st,  which  makes  thy  love  more  strong 
To  love  that  well  which  thou  must  leave  ere  long." 

How  true  to  the  heart  which  uttered  from  its  own 
comprehensive  sympathy  the  devotion  of  the  hapless 
lovers  of  Verona,  and  the  superhuman  affection  of  Des- 
deniona,  is  the  conception  of  love  in  these  lines ! — 

"  Let  me  not  to  the  marriage  of  true  minds 
Admit  impediments.     Love  is  not  love 
Which  alters  when  it  alteration  finds, 
Or  bends,  with  the  remover  to  remove. 
Oh  no  !     It  is  an  ever-fixed  mark, 
That  looks  on  tempests  and  is  never  shaken. 
It  is  the  star  to  every  wandering  bark 
Whose  worth's  unknown,  although  his  height  be  taken. 
Love's  not  Time's  fool,  though  rosy  lips  and  cheeks 
Within  his  bending  sickle's  compass  come. 
Love  alters  not  with  his  brief  hours  and  weeks, 
But  bears  it  out  even  to  the  edge  of  doom !" 

But  the  form  of  poetic  composition  to  which  the  genius 
of  Shakspeare's  imagination  of  necessity  directed  itself 
was  the  drama;  and  such  is  his  power  of  creation,  of  in- 
venting, not  a  character,  a  mere  type  of  any  particular 
passion  or  trait,  but  the  representative  of  human  nature 
as  it  exists  in  individual  reality,  with  the  complexity  and 
variety  of  elements  which  make  up  personal  existence, — 
BO  wonderful  was  his  might  in  endowing  his  creations 
with  lifelike  functions  and  qualities,  that,  even  if  tragedy 
and  comedy  had  not  been  handed  down  from  antiquity, 
I  can  conceive  the  possibility  of  Shakspeare's  inventing 
the  drama  itself  to  supply  the  necessities  of  his  imagina- 
tion !  The  intrinsic  demands  of  his  own  genius  had  far 


MYSTERIES    AND    MORALITIES.  179 


greater  influence  in  controlling  his  literary  career  than 
the  mere  incident  of  chance  associations  with  theatrical 
life  on  his  coming  to  London. 

It  is  proper,  at  this  point,  to  look  at  the  condition  of 
English  dramatic  literature  at  the  time  when  Shakspeare, 
with  many  others,  entered  that  intellectual  arena.  To 
trace  the  drama  in  England,  from  its  origin  to  its  great 
Shakspearian  consummation,  would  be  a  theme  far  tran- 
scending my  bounds;  but,  in  a  very  summary  way,  I  may 
glance  at  it.  At  an  early  and  uncertain  period  theatrical 
representations  had  taken  that  curious  form  which 
prevailed  throughout  Europe  in  the  Middle  Ages, — the 
Mysteries,  or  J///m-fe-plays.  These  were  scenical  stories 
relating  to  religious  subjects,  taken  either  from  Scripture 
history  or  the  legends  of  the  saints ;  so  that  there  were 
theatrical  representations  of  the  Creation,  of  the  massacre 
of  the  innocents  and  the  sufferings  of  various  martyrs. 
It  is  difficult  to  realize  this  phase  of  the  European  mind, 
when  the  most  sacred  subjects  were  thus  appropriated 
without  any  accompanying  sentiment  of  irreverence  or 
profanity.  Many  of  these  dramas  I  could  not  venture 
to  describe  to  you  without  exposing  myself  to  the  re- 
proach of  irreverent  levity.  Another  form  which  the 
early  drama  assumed  was  that  of  the  Moralities.  These 
were  allegorical  dramas  made  up  of  abstract  personifica- 
tions, such  as  "Pride,"  "Gluttony,"  "Swift  to  Sin," 
"Charity;"  and  what  might  be  appropriate  personifica- 
tions in  our  day, — "  Learning  without  Money,"  and 
"  Money  without  Learning,"  and  "All  for  Money."  They 
were  the  persons  of  the  drama.  In  the  great  controversy 
of  the  Reformation  these  devices  for  edification  were  freely 
employed  by  both  divisions  of  the  church  to  promote  their 


ISO  L  E  C  T  C  U  K     fit'  X II. 


respective  opinions.  An  act  of  Parliament,  in  the  reign 
of  Henry  VIII.,  for  the  promotion  of  true  religion,  for- 
bade all  interludes  contradictory  to  established  doctrines. 

The  "  Mysteries"  and  "  Moralities"  gradually  passed 
away ;  but  it  is  not  until  so  late  a  period  as  the  beginning 
of  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth  that  the  beginning  of  the 
drama  proper  can  be  dated.  One  or  two  comedies  belong 
to  a  somewhat  earlier  date ;  but  the  fame  of  the  first  Eng- 
lish tragedy  belongs  to  him  whose  single  poetical  effort  in 
another  department  of  poetry  I  had  occasion  to  refer  to  in 
a  former  lecture  with  such  high  commendation, — Sackville, 
Lord  Buckhurst. 

But  even  within  the  last  twenty  years  of  the  sixteenth 
century  Sir  Philip  Sydney  could  find  little  on  the  Eng- 
lish stage  to  save  it  from  his  disdainful  censure.  "  It  is 
strange,"  remarks  Mr.  Hallam,  "  to  reflect  that  this  re- 
prehension comes  from  the  pen  of  Sydney  when  Shak- 
speare  had  just  arrived  at  manhood.  Had  he  not  been 
so  prematurely  cut  off,  what  would  have  been  the  tran- 
sport of  that  noble  spirit,  which  the  ballad  of  'Chevy 
Chase'  could  stir  as  with  the  sound  of  a  trumpet,  in  read- 
ing the  'Fairy  Queen'  or  'Othello' !" 

Before  the  drama  was  touched  by  the  wand  of  Shak- 
speare  it  had  been  much  advanced  by  several  dramatists, 
who,  though  contemporaneous,  were  his  predecessors  in 
authorship.  The  most  eminent  of  these  were  Marlowe  and 
Peele,  and  one  to  whom,  as  to  his  more  illustrious  coeval, 
Stratford  had  given  birth, — Greene.  The  great  dramatic 
era  in  English  literature  began  in  the  middle  of  Eliza- 
beth's reign;  and,  though  in  some  measure  checked  by 
the  puritan  feeling  which  then  began  to  manifest  itself 
in  England,  it  continued  during  that  of  her  successor, 


MIXOR    DRAMATISTS.  181 


James  I.,  when  it  reached  its  highest  eminence,  and 
flourished  until  the  latter  part  of  the  turbulent  reign 
which  followed;  when,  in  consequence  of  the  tumults 
and  calamities  of  the  civil  wars,  the  theatres  were  closed. 
The  period  designated  is  very  little  more  than  half  a  cen- 
tury,— from  the  middle  of  Elizabeth's  to  the  end  of 
Charles  the  First's  reign, — and  yet  may  be  said  to  compre- 
hend almost  all  the  excellence  of  the  English  drama.  I 
know  of  few  things  more  remarkable  in  literary  history 
than  the  vast  abundance  of  dramatic  literature  during 
this  comparatively  brief  era.  A  great  amount  of  it  has 
perished ;  a  great  amount  is  inaccessible  in  the  rare  ori- 
ginal editions.  The  dramatists  were  numerous,  their  pro- 
ductions voluminous.  One  of  them — Heywood — speaks 
of  having  had  a  share  in  the  authorship  of  two  hundred 
and  twenty  plays,  of  which  only  twenty-five,  some  of 
considerable  merit,  have  been  preserved.  What  was  re- 
markable, too,  these  effusions  flowed  from  their  minds 
with  a  recklessness  as  to  their  preservation,  a  readiness 
to  commit  them  to  all  the  casualties  of  theatrical  MSS., 
with  an  indifference  as  to  their  future  destiny,  contrasting 
curiously  with  that  finical  precision  with  which  the  lit- 
tle literary  men  of  a  later  generation  guard  their  small 
wares.  I  do  not  remember  ever  to  have  met  any  philo- 
sophical attempt  to  account  for  the  amazing  dramatic 
activity  of  the  age  of  English  literature  under  considera- 
tion. I  should  probably  satisfy  neither  your  minds  nor 
my  own  were  I  to  endeavour  to  trace  it  to  that  trait  of 
those  times, — the  admirable  blending  of  action  and  con- 
templation discoverable  in  many  of  the  illustrious  men 
who  then  flourished ;  for  instance,  Sir  Philip  Sydney 
devoting  himself  to  the  effort  of  raising  English  poetry 


182  LECTURE    FIFTH. 


from  the  dust,  kindling  his  heart  with  the  strains  of  the 
old  ballads,  or  driving  the  imagination  of  the  gentle  Spen- 
ser forth  from  the  hermitage  of  his  modesty,  and  at  the 
same  time  sharing  in  affairs  of  state,  in  knightly  deeds 
of  arms,  and  meeting  death  upon  the  field  of  hattle ;  or 
Raleigh,  preserving  the  love  of  letters  throughout  his 
whole  varied  career  at  court,  in  camp,  or  tempest-tost  in 
his  adventures  on  the  ocean.  It  seems  to  me  that  an 
age  thus  characterized  hy  the  combination  of  thought 
and  deed  in  its  representative  men  had  its  most  congenial 
literature  in  that  of  the  drama, — -poetry  in  action. 

As  the  most  agreeable  way  of  enumerating  the  most 
distinguished  of  the  English  dramatists,  I  may  quote 
a  passage  from  one  of  Thomas  Hey  wood's  plays,  in  which 
he  complains,  in  jest  and  earnest,  of  the  liberties  taken 
with  his  fellow-authors  : — 


"Our  modern  poets  to  that  pass  are  driven, 
Those  names  are  curtailed  which  they  first  had  given ; 
And,  as  we  wished  to  have  their  memories  drowned, 
We  scarcely  can  afford  them  half  their  sound. 
Greene,  who  had  in  both  academies  ta'en 
Degree  of  Master,  yet  could  never  gain 
To  be  called  more  than  Robin, — who,  had  he 
Professed  aught  save  the  muse,  served,  and  been  free 
After  seven  years'  prenticeship,  might  have 
(With  credit,  too)  gone  Robert  to  his  grave; 
Marlowe,  renowned  for  his  rare  art  and  wit, 
Could  ne'er  attain  beyond  the  name  of  Kit, 
Although  his  Hero  and  Leander  did 
Merit  addition  rather ;  Famous  Kid 
Was  called  but  Tom, —  Tom  Watson:  though  he  wrote 
Able  to  make  Apollo's  self  to  dote 
Upon  his  muse,  for  all  that  he  could  strive, 
Yet  never  could  to  his  full  name  arrive ; 


"TUB    GENTLE    SII A  KSPE  ARE."  183 


Tom  Nash  (in  his  time  of  no  small  esteem) 

Could  not  a  second  syllable  redeem  ; 

Excellent  Beaumont,  in  the  foremost  rank 

Of  the  rarest  wits,  was  never  more  than  Frank  ; 

Mellifluous  SHAKSPEARE,  whose  enchanting  quill 

Commanded  mirth  or  passion,  was  but  Will ; 

And  famous  Jonson,  tho'  his  learned  pen 

Be  dipt  in  Castaly,  is  still  but  Ben; 

Fletcher  and  Webster,  of  that  learned  pack 

None  of  the  meanest,  neither  was  but  Jack; 

Decker,  but  Tom;  nor  May  nor  Middleton; 

And  he's  now  but  Jack  Ford  that  once  were  John. 

Nor  speak  I  this  that  any  here  exprest 

Should  think  themselves  less  worthy  than  the  rest 

"Whose  names  have  their  full  syllables  and  sound; 

Or  that  Frank,  Kit,  or  Jack,  are  the  least  wound 

Unto  their  fame  and  merit     I,  for  my  part, 

(Think  others  what  they  please,)  accept  that  heart 

AVhich  courts  my  love  in  most  familiar  phrase: 

And  that  it  takes  not  from  my  pains  or  praise 

If  any  one  to  me  so  bluntly  come; 

I  hold  he  loves  me  best  who  calls  me  Tom." 

Charles  Lamb,  to  whose  admirable  "  Specimens  of  the 
Early  Dramatists"  I  am  indebted  for  this  passage,  sen- 
sibly remarks  that  the  familiarity  of  common  discourse 
would  be  apt  to  take  greater  liberties  with  the  dramatic 
poets,  as  being  more  upon  a  level  with  stage-actors ;  and 
that  the  familiarity  did  not  reach  to  the  other  poets,  for 
we  hear  nothing  of  Sam  Daniel  or  Ned  Spenser. 

I  must  confine  these  my  cursory  notices  of  the  drama- 
tists to  the  contemplation  of  Shakspeare's  relative  atti- 
tude in  the  midst  of  them.  A  living  man,  he  mingled 
with  them  on  the  social  terms  of  a  friendly  equality  and 
intellectual  independence.  He  was  "  the  gentle  Shak- 
speare;"  and  all  reason  bids  us  to  believe  that  his  spirit 
knew  not  the  stain  of  any  mean  envy  or  vulgar  spite. 


184  LECTURE     FIFTH. 


In  the  sight  of  later  generations,  equality  with  that  dra- 
matic legion,  the  host  of  his  precursors,  his  contem- 
poraries, and  his  successors,  is  not  recognised.  They 
were  indeed  poets  too,  with  high  imaginations,  with  high 
intellects,  some  with  high  learning ;  but  he  is  seen  stand- 
ing amid  the  long  range  like  Chimborazo  overtopping 
the  Andes.  The  learned  editor  of  several  of  the  early 
dramatists  remarks,  "A  careful  perusal  of  every  exist- 
ing drama  of  the  reigns  of  Elizabeth  and  James  has 
thoroughly  convinced  me  of  the  immeasurable  superiority 
of  Shakspeare  to  all  the  playwrights  of  his  time."  I  am 
not.  I  trust,  insensible  to  the  invention  and  power  dis- 
played by  Fletcher,  Jonson,  Ford,  Webster,  Heywood, 
Middleton,  and  the  rest  of  that  illustrious  brotherhood ; 
but  I  feel  that  over  the  worst  of  Shakspeare's  dramas 
his  genius  has  diffused  a  peculiar  charm,  of  which  their 
best  productions  are  entirely  destitute ;  and  to  insinuate 
that  any  of  his  contemporaries  ever  produced  a  play 
worthy  of  being  ranked  with  his  happiest  efforts — with 
" Othello,"  for  instance,  "Macbeth,"  "Lear,"  or  "Ham- 
let,"— seems  to  me  an  absurdity  unpardonable  in  any 
critic. 

Again :  that  large-minded  and  open-hearted  critic, 
Charles  Lamb,  announced  as  one  design  of  his  "  Speci- 
mens of  the  Early  Drama"  to  show  how  much  of  Shak- 
speare shines  in  the  great  men  his  contemporaries,  and 
how  far  in  his  divine  mind  and  manners  he  surpassed 
them  and  all  mankind. 

Accustomed  as  we  are  to  such  elevated  conceptions 
of  Shakspeare's  powers,  it  makes  a  strange  impression  on 
the  mind  when  we  first  read  a  description  of  the  thea- 
trical representations  for  which  his  writings  were  origi- 


PRIMITIVE    THEATRES.  1S5 


nally  intended.  The  rude  fashion  of  the  buildings,  and 
the  still  ruder  fashion  of  the  audience,  seem  singularly 
incongruous.  "  The  amusements,"  we  are  told,  "  of  the 
audience,  previous  to  the  commencement  of  the  play, 
were  reading,  playing  at  cards,  smoking  tobacco,  drinking 
ale,  and  eating  nuts  and  apples.  Even  during  the  perform- 
ance, it  was  customary  for  wits  and  critics,  and  young 
gallants  who  were  desirous  of  attracting  attention,  to  sta- 
tion themselves  on  the  stage,  either  lying  on  the  rushes 
or  seated  on  hired  stools,  while  their  pages  furnished 
them  with  pipes  and  tobacco."  To  these  animals 
Shakspeare  cast  the  pearls  of  his  philosophy !  To  think 
that  to  such  as  these  were  first  spoken  the  deep-souled 
melancholy,  the  heart-stricken  meditations,  of  Hamlet! 
In  one  particular,  it  has  been  well  remarked,  the  destitute 
condition  of  the  early  theatre  was  propitious  to  the 
poetry  of  the  drama, — the  absence  of  all  movable  scenery 
or  scenic  preparations  rendering  it  necessary  to  appeal 
solely  and  strongly  to  the  imagination  of  the  hearer; 
for,  had  there  been  any  ambitious  imitation  by  painted 
canvass,  we  might  not  have  stood  with  Lear  on  the  cliffs 
of  Dover,  or  amid  the  palaces  of  Venice  with  Shylock 
and  Antonio. 

The  theatrical  inadequacy  in  Shakspeare's  own  times 
suggests  the  inquiry  whether  the  stage  at  any  period  is 
competent  to  the  representation  of  his  wonderful  pro- 
ductions. Not  questioning  that  occasionally  a  single 
part  may  be  enacted  with  ability,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  be- 
lieve that,  for  integrity  of  impression,  the  stage  is  utterly 
and  universally  incompetent  j  and,  still  more,  that  it  in- 
trudes into  the  imagination  low,  mean,  and  false  associa- 
tions,— notions  which  it  is  hard  to  purge  the  mind  of. 


1S6  LECTURE    FIFIII. 


And  therefore  I  rejoice  that  every  year  the  representation 
of  Shakspeare's  plays  is  becoming  less  and  less  frequent. 
The  satisfaction  of  witnessing  the  masterly  representation 
of  a  chief  part  by  a  great  actor  is  purchased  at  too  high  a 
cost. 

How,  for  instance,  can  flesh  and  blood,  of  the  lightest 
texture,  deal  with  the  representation  of  such  a  creature  as 
Ariel,  so  ethereal  that  he  speeds  on  Prospero's  mandate, — 

"  I  drink  the  air  before  me,  and  return 
Or  e'er  your  pulse  twice  beat," — 

and,  while  doing  his  spiriting  gently  in  his  earthly 
master's  service,  can  yet  sing  a  bird-like  song,  a  fairy's 
lyric,  such  as  only  Shakspeare's  sweet  fancy  could  have 
framed : — 

"  Where  the  bee  sucks,  there  suck  I ; 
In  a  cowslip's  bell  I  lie; 
There  I  couch  when  owls  do  cry; 
On  the  bat's  back  I  do  fly, 
After  summer,  merrily; 
Merrily,  merrily  shall  I  live  now, 
Under  the  blossom  that  hangs  on  the  bough." 

What  has  the  stage  ever  done  for  the  weird  sisters  in 
"  Macbeth"  ?  The  curtain  rises,  and  there  stand  three 
figures,  tattered  and  grotesque-looking, — very  like  those 
wretched  vagrants  to  be  seen  in  our  streets  picking  rags 
and  scraps  from  out  the  gutters ;  and  the  first  sounds 
they  utter  reveal  that  the  parts  are  filled  by  the  comic 
actors  of  the  company, — the  very  tones  of  whose  voices 
come  associated  with  vulgar  buffoonery  and  ribaldry. 
And  these  are  the  chosen  representations  of  those  terrific 
creations !  and  thus  that  mighty  work  of  genius,  crimson- 


UPERNATURAL    OF    THE    DRAMA.  187 


dyed  in  the  blood  of  tragedy,  is  ushered  in,  like  a  farce ! 
No;  the  myriad  mind  of  Shakspeare  is  a  region  too  lofty 
and  too  pure  for  scenic  art  to  reach.  The  genius  of 
Garrick  sank  beneath  the  effort.  The  best  acting  plays 
are  the  works  of  far  inferior  dramatists ;  but  for  Shak- 
speare let  no  one  put  his  intellect  in  pledge  to  re- 
ceive his  idea  from  the  players.  Indeed,  several  of 
his  chief  dramas  have  been  vilely  mutilated  for  the  very 
purpose  of  adapting  them  to  the  stage.  In  "  Richard 
the  Third,"  passages  have  been  interpolated  which  the 
heart  of  the  poet  would  have  repudiated  with  disgust. 
In  the  "  Tempest"  there  was  not  love  enough;  and 
actually  a  second  pair  of  lovers  has  been  thrust  in, 
marring  the  lovely  impression  of  those  sweet  interviews 
of  Ferdinand  and  Miranda.  "  Romeo  and  Juliet"  was 
not  tragic  enough ;  and  a  little  more  grief  is  patched  on 
the  catastrophe.  "  King  Lear"  was  too  tragic,  and  the 
catastrophe  must  be  abated. 

The  inadequacy  of  the  stage  —  not  only  for  Shak- 
speare's  supernatural  creations,  but  even  his  human 
characters  —  has  been  admirably  discussed  by  Charles 
Lamb,  in  one  of-  his  peculiar  and  inimitable  essays. 
"  The  Lear  of  Shakspeare,"  he  remarks,  "  cannot  be 
acted.  It  is  essentially  impossible  to  be  represented  on  a 
stage :  the  contemptible  machinery  by  which  they  mimic 
the  storm  he  goes  out  in  is  not  more  inadequate  to 
represent  the  horrors  of  the  real  elements  than  any  actor 
can  be  to  represent  Lear;  they  might  more  easily  pro- 
pose to  personate  the  Satan  of  Milton  upon  a  stage,  or 
one  of  Michael  Angelo's  terrible  figures.  The  greatness 
of  Lear  is  not  in  corporeal  dimension,  but  in  intellectual : 
the  explosions  of  his  passions  are  terrible  as  a  volcano; 


1SS  LECTURE     FIFTH. 


they  are  storms,  turning  up  and  disclosing  to  the  bottom 
that  sea,  his  mind,  with  all  its  vast  riches.  It  is  his 
mind  which  is  laid  bare.  This  case  of  flesh  and  blood 
seems  too  insignificant  to  be  thought  on,  even  as  he  him- 
self neglects  it.  On  the  stage  we  see  nothing  but  cor- 
poreal infirmities  and  weakness,  the  impotence  of  rage; 
while  we  read  it,  we  see  not  Lear,  but  we  are  Lear;  we 
are  in  his  mind ;  we  are  sustained  by  a  grandeur  which 

baffles   the   malice    of    daughters    and   storms 

"\Vhat  have  looks  or  tones  to  do  with  that  sublime  iden- 
tification of  his  age  with  that  of  the  heavens  themselves, 
when,  in  his  reproaches  to  them  for  conniving  at  the 
injustice  of  his  children,  he  reminds  thejn  that  '  they 
themselves  are  old'  ?  What  gesture  shall  we  appropriate 
to  this  ?  what  has  the  voice  or  the  eye  to  do  with  such 
things  ?  But  the  play  is  beyond  all  art,  as  the  tamper- 
ings  with  it  show.  It  is  too  hard  and  stony;  it  must 
have  love-scenes  and  a  happy  ending.  It  is  not  enough 
that  Cordelia  is  a  daughter;  she  must  shine  as  a  lover 
too A  happy  ending ! — As  if  the  living  martyr- 
dom that  Lear  had  gone  through,  the  flaying  of  his  feel- 
ings alive,  did  not  make  a  fair  dismissal  from  the  stage 
of  life  the  only  decorous  thing  for  him.  If  he  is  to  live 
and  be  happy  after, — if  he  could  sustain  this  world's 
burden  after, — why  all  this  pudder  and  preparation  ? 
why  torment  us  with  all  this  unnecessary  sympathy?  As 
if  the  childish  pleasure  of  getting  his  gilt  robes  and 
sceptre  again  could  tempt  him  to  act  over  again  his  mis- 
used station ! — as  if,  at  his  years  and  with  his  experience, 
any  thing  was  left  but  to  die." 

The  knowledge  of  the  drama  of  Shakspeare  is  to  be 
gained    by  drop  and    careful  study, — study  thoughtful 


M  A  C  B  E  T  II.  1S9 

and  imaginative;  that  is,  not  only  by  reflection  and 
meditation  on  the  wisdom  of  his  oracular  poetry,  but  by 
sympathetic  action  of  the  imagination,  so  as  to  realize 
what  he  creates.  Just  in  proportion  to  the  intensity  of 
this  imaginative  effort  will  be  the  completeness  of  con- 
ception formed  of  any  of  these  inventions.  Thus  only 
do  they  leave  an  integrity  of  impression.  For  instance, 
it  is  essential  to  the  true  appreciation  of  "  Macbeth"  to 
realize  the  supernatural  atmosphere  which  envelops  the 
action  of  that  tragedy  with  all  its  rapidity  of  movement. 
It  is  set  in  a  shadowy,  spectral  region  of  witches  and 
dreams  and  nightmare;  of  visions  to  the  open  eye  of 
the  wakeful  and  the  sealed  eye  of  the  sleeping;  of  in- 
visible and  mysterious  powers  in  the  elements,  and  the 
prophetic  sight  of  distant  dynasties  of  kings ;  of  incanta- 
tions; of  voiceless  ghosts  arising  from  bloody  graves, — 
blood-bolstered  visitants  from  charnel-houses;  of  the 
gloomy  presentiments  of  the  innocent  and  the  more 
fearful  hauntings  of  a  blood-stained  conscience.  The 
brief  scene  the  drama  opens  with  stamps  its  whole 
character.  It  is  a  wild  and  instant  appeal  to  the  imagi- 
nation, especially  by  the  absence  of  all  definite  desig- 
nation. The  scene,  "  an  open  place :"  amid  thunder 
and  lightning ;  the  turmoil  and  carnage  of  war  close  at 
hand;  the  three  witches,  kinless,  nameless, — sexless 
too,  I  may  say;  the  weird  women  with  beards,  scenting 
the  blood  of  a  battle-field,  meet,  to  meet  again,  to  seal 
the  deep  damnation  of  their  victim.  Their  fatal  intent 
thus  darkly  intimated,  they  answer  to  mysterious  calls  of 
you  know  not  what, — "  Paddock"  and  "GmpaalkiBj" — 
and,  ere  you  have  well  known  their  presence,  they  vanish, 


190  LECTDRE    FIFTH. 


with  wild  utterance  of  the  confusion  and  inurkiness  of  a 
demon's  heart : — 

"  Fair  is  foul,  and  foul  is  fair ; 
Hover  through  the  fog  and  filthy  air." 

In  short  space  they  come  again, — these  posters  of  the 
sea  and  land, — hastening  from  witchcraft  mischief,  gloat- 
ing over  the  treasure  of — 

"  A  pilot's  thumb, 
Wrecked  as  homeward  he  did  come." 

And  then,  catching  somewhat  of  sublimity  from  the 
greatness  of  the  malice,  they  rise  suddenly  to  the  full 
stature  of  their  supernatural  strength,  and,  on  the  Wasted 
heath,  proclaim  their  prophetic  salutation  to  Macbeth  and 
Banquo.  The  sun  shines  out  a  little  while  on  that  sweet 
landscape  in  which  Duncan  is  moving  on  with  sacrificial 
meekness  to  his  slaughter.  As  the  guilt  deepens  the 
supernatural  atmosphere  thickens  with  it, — visions  and 
dreams  and  spiritual  voices  : — 

"Lamentings  heard  i'  the  airj  strange  screams  of  death 
And  prophesying,  with  accents  terrible, 
Of  dire  combustion  and  confused  events, 
New  hatched  to  the  woful  time." 

There  are  Banquo's  dreams  of  the  weird  sisters,  and  the 
bosom-weight  of  his  gloomy  presentiment;  the  fatal 
vision  of  "  the  air-drawn  dagger,"  with  its  "  gouts  of 
blood ;"  the  broken  sleep  of  the  surfeited  grooms,  their 
laughter,  their  terror,  and  their  prayers;  and  the  wild 
curse  in  the  air  of  eternal  wakefulness :  and  all  this  mag- 


MACBETH.  191 


nified  and  distorted  through  the  medium  of  a  murderous, 
burning  brain : — 

"  There's  one  did  laugh  in  his  sleep,  and  one  cried,  murder  1 
That  they  did  wake  each  other;  I  stood  and  heard  them : 
But  they  did  say  their  prayers,  and  addressed  them 
Again  to  sleep. 

****** 

"  One  cried,  God  bless  us  !  and,  Amen,  the  other; 
As  they  had  seen  me,  with  these  hangman's  hands, 
Listening  their  fear ;  I  could  not  say,  Amen, 
When  they  did  say,  God  bless  us. 

****** 

"  Methought  I  heard  a  voice  cry,  Sleep  no  more  ! 
Macbeth  does  murder  sleep,  the  innocent  sleep ; 
Sleep,  that  knits  up  the  ravelled  sleave  of  care, 
The  death  of  each  day's  life,  sore  labour's  bath, 
Balm  of  hurt  minds,  yreat  nature's  second  course, 
Chief  "nourisher  in  life's  feast. 

****** 

"  Still  it  cried,  Sleep  no  more!  to  all  the  house; 
Glamis  hath  murdered  sleep  ;  and  therefore  Cawdor 
Shall  sleep  no  more,  Macbeth  shall  sleep  no  more .'" 

The  storm  without  is  raging;  and  who  can  doubt  that 
the  witches  were  riding  on  the  blast  and  untying  the 
winds  on  that  unruly  night?  The  whole  domain  of 
Macbeth's  castle  is  impregnated  with  the  supernatural 
atmosphere : — the  raven  croaking  over  the  battlements, 
the  owl  screaming,  the  obscene-  bird  clamouring  the 
livelong  night, — • 

"  Duncan's  horses,  .... 
Beauteous  and  swift,  the  minions  of  their  race, 
Turned  wild  in  nature,  broke  their  stalls,  flung  out, 
Contending  'gainst  obedience,  as  they  would  make 
War  with  mankind." 


LECTURE    FIFTH. 


At  a  more  advanced  part  of  the  tragedy  the  super- 
natural begins  to  fade  away;  "the  dark  and  midnight 
hags" — whom  the  tyrant  tampers  with  while  their  toils 
are  winding  closer  and  closer  round  him — vanish  with 
Macbeth's  curse  upon  them  : — 

"  Infected  by  the  air  whereon  they  ride, 
And  damn'd  all  those  that  trust  them." 

And  when  we  draw  near  the  catastrophe  of  the  drama 
we  almost  forget  the  witchery  of  the  weird  sisters. 
Their  mighty  and  superhuman  malice  has  been  achieved, 
and  then  all  is  left  to  human  vice,  human  passion, 
human  misery.  The  high-wrought  spirituality  of  the 
tragedy  has  its  sublime  close  in  the  slumbering  agitation 
of  Lady  Macbeth, — that  terrific,  open-eyed,  sleep-walking, 
sleep-talking, — -and  the  never-ending  misery  of  the  blood- 
stained hand, — the  appalling  incoherencies  of  the  haunt- 
ings  of  guilt : — 

"  Out,  damned  spot !  out,  I  say !  .  .  .  .  Who  would 
have  thought  the  old  man  to  have  had  so  much  blood 
in  him  ?....!  tell  you  yet  again,  Banquo's  buried ; 

he  cannot  come  out  of  his  grave Here's  the 

smell  of  the  blood  still ;  all  the  perfumes  of  Arabia 
will  not  sweeten  this  little  hand." 

At  the  last  the  supernatural  has  passed  wholly  away ; 
the  witches,  the  ghosts,  the  incantations,  and  the  dreams, 
— all  are  gone ;  and  Macbeth,  forsaken  by  the  suicide  of 
his  fiend-like  queen,  is  left  alone,  —  the  sea  of  blood 
sweeping  him  onward,  helpless,  hopeless ;  for  its  red  tide 
has  washed  out,  one  by  one,  the  promises  that  witch- 
craft had  written  upon  sand,  and,  with  wild  misgivings 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    SHAKSPEARE'S    TRAGEDIES.      193 


of  all  realities,  lie  stands,  "  a-weary  of  the  sun,"  upon  a 
desert  spot  of  this  bank  and  shoal  of  time; — behind 
him  the  furies  of  a  murderous  memory,  before  him  the 
blackness  of  an  accursed  darkness,  and,  in  its  centre, 
Death. 

Taking  the  thought  from  this  tragedy,  the  remark  may 
be  generalized  on  the  whole  Shakspearian  drama,  that  all 
the  sympathies  it  gives  are  with  goodness,  all  its  hatred 
of  vice.  Disfigured  though  it  be  in  spots  by  the  gross- 
ness  of  his  times,  or,  still  more,  of  theatrical  interpolations, 
it  is  ministrant  in  the  cause  of  virtue ;  and  the  commen- 
tator on  Shakspeare  has  no  more  important  office  than  to 
illustrate  the  sanity  of  his  genius, — his  intellectual  and 
moral  healthfulness.  The  large  sympathy  he  communi- 
cates is  comprehensive  not  only  of  afflicted  virtue,  but 
also  when  human  frailty  has  brought  down  calamities  on 
its  own  head.  The  tragedies  abound  with  this  forgiving 
temper,  this  Christian  spirit  of  pity,  this  teaching  of 
brotherly  kindness  and  fervent  charity,  not  trampling  on 
a  fellow-being,  rejoicing  in  his  sorrows  because  he  de- 
served them,  but  restoring  him  in  the  spirit  of  meekness. 
What,  for  instance,  at  the  outset,  is  Lear,  but  a  weak, 
petulant,  doting,  headstrong,  selfish,  foolish  old  man  ? 
But  how  are  we  not  taught  to  forget  and  forgive  all  this 
when  his  woes  throng  round  him !  His  intellectual 
power  rising  with  his  misery,  and  his  sublime  madness 
giving  him  unwonted  dignity,  we  have  at  last  but  one 
feeling  for  the  child-changed  father. 

Observe,  too,  this  trait  in  the  historical  drama  of 
"  Richard  the  Second."  You  look  on  him  at  first  as  at 
once  arbitrary  and  imbecile, — heartless,  vain,  and  violent ; 
but,  when  affliction  comes,  his  sense  of  royalty  rises  in 

VOL.  I.  13 


194  LECTUEE    FIFTH. 


as  majestic  a  strain  as  ever  proclaimed  the  divine  right 
of  kings  : — t 

"  When  the  searching  eye  of  heaven  is  hid 
Behind  the  globe,  and  lights  the  lower  world, 
Then  thieves  and  robbers  range  abroad  unseen, 
In  murders,  and  in  outrage,  bloody  here; 
But  when,  from  under  this  terrestrial  ball, 
He  fires  the  proud  tops  of  the  eastern  pines, 
And  darts  his  light  through  every  guilty  hole, — 
Then  murders,  treasons,  and  detested  sins, 
The  cloak  of  night  being  plucked  from  off  their  backs, 
Stand  bare  and  naked,  trembling  at  themselves. 
So  when  this  thief,  this  traitor,  Bolingbroke, — 
Who  all  the  while  hath  revelled  in  the  night, 
Whilst  we  were  wandering  with  the  antipodes, — 
Shall  see  us  rising  in  our  throne  the  east, 
His  treasons  will  sit  blushing  in  his  face, 
Not  able  to  endure  the  sight  of  day, 
But,  self-affrighted,  tremble  at  his  sin. 
Not  all  the  water  in  the  rough  rude  sea 
Can  wash  the  balm  from  an  anointed  king: 
The  breath  of  worldly  men  cannot  depose 
The  deputy  elected  by  the  Lord ; 
For  every  man  that  Bolingbroke  hath  pressed 
To  lift  shrewd  steel  against  our  golden  crown; 
God  for  his  Richard  hath  in  heavenly  pay 
A  glorious  angel :  then,  if  angels  fight, 
Weak  men  must  fall ;  for  heaven  still  guards  the  right" 

And  how  exquisitely  is  our  sympathy  conciliated  by  the 
description  of  Richard's  majesty  waning  in  the  presence 
of  the  rising  popularity  of  Bolingbroke ! — 

"  Men's  eyes 

Did  scowl  on  Richard ;  no  man  cried,  God  save  him ! 
No  joyful  tongue  gave  him  his  welcome  home; 
But  dust  was  thrown  upon  his  sacred  head  j 


THE    TEMPEST    HIS    LAST    POEM.  1«J5 


Which  with  such  gentle  sorrow  he  shook  off, — 
His  face  still  combating  with  tears  and  smiles, 
The  badges  of  his  grief  and  patience, — 
That,  had  not  God,  for  some  strong  purpose,  steeled 
The  hearts  of  men,  they  must  perforce  have  melted, 
And  barbarism  itself  have  pitied  him." 

I  trust  that  no  one  has  been  so  uncharitable  as  to  im- 
pute to  me  the  absurdity  of  fancying  that  one  lecture 
could  embrace  more  than  a  very  inadequate  proportion  of 
what  is  due  to  the  vast  theme.  I  dare  not  trust  myself 
even  to  name  the  various  unnoticed  considerations  re- 
specting the  genius  of  Shakspeare,  for  they  rise  up  to  my 
mind  in  throngs.  When  I  was  obliged  to  close  my  in- 
complete examination  of  Spenser's  "  Fairy  Queen/'  I  pre- 
sumed distantly  to  intimate  the  hope  that  some  future  oc- 
casion might  give  me  ampler  space  for  our  converse  with 
that  wondrous  allegory.  May  I  venture  now  to  add  the 
expression  of  a  feeling — of  course,  merely  my  own — that, 
so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  I  can  promise  myself  no  better 
pleasure  than,  at  some  future  time,  with  the  light  of  the 
same  kind  and  intelligent  faces  upon  me,  to  enter  upon 
the  studious  and  reverential  consideration  of  the  whole 
series  of  the  dramas  of  Shakspeare  ? 

In  conclusion :  a  few  words  of  Shakspeare  himself. 
It  is  said  that  the  last  of  his  poems  was  the  "  Tempest ;" 
and  certainly  the  close  is  finely  typical  of  the  close  of 
his  career  of  authorship.  The  most  touching  of  the  series 
of  his  sonnets  are  the  confessional  ones,  in  which  he 
mourns  over  the  contamination  of  his  pure  and  gentle 
spirit  by  the  uncongenial  courses  of  a  player's  trade : — • 

"Alas  !  'tis  true  I  have  gone  here  and  there, 
And  made  myself  a  motley  to  the  view, 


196  LECTURE    FIFTII. 


Gored  mine  own  thoughts,  sold  cheap  what  is  most  dear, 
Made  old  offences  of  affections  new. 
*  *  *  *  * 

Oh,  for  my  sake  do  you  with  fortune  chide, 

The  guilty  goddess  of  my  harmful  deeds, 

That  did  not  hetter  for  my  life  provide, 

Than  public  means,  which  public  manners  breeds. 

Thence  comes  it  that  my  name  receives  a  brand ; 

And  almost  thence  my  nature  is  subdued 

To  what  it  works  in,  like  the  dyer's  hand." 

When,  in  the  maturity  of  his  powers,  Shakspeare  turned 
away  from  London  and  sought  the  sweet  places  of  his  in- 
nocent childhood,  we  can  almost  hear  him,  in  the  words 
of  Prospero,  abjuring  his  magic,  dismissing  the  spiritual 
creations  of  his  imagination,  and  looking  to  the  tranquil 
village  he  was  born  in,  where 

"  Every  third  thought  shall  be  my  grave." 

The  highest  glory  of  Shakspeare's  poetry  is  its  spi- 
rituality. With  all  its  quick  sympathies  with  things  of 
sight,  it  is  full  of  the  life  by  faith.  Kindred  at  once  to 
earth  and  heaven,  it  realizes  what  Wordsworth,  with  a 
noble  image,  grandly  tells  : — 

"  Truth  shows  a  glorious  face 
While,  on  that  isthmus  which  commands 
The  councils  of  both  worlds,  she  stands." 

There  is  many  a  trace  to  show  how  deep  was  Shak- 
speare's sense  of  the  perishable  nature  of  the  things  of  time. 
How  deeper  still  was  his  sense  of  eternity  and  its  glories ! 
Reflect  on  that  fine  passage  in  "Antony  and  Cleopatra/' 
when  the  Roman  feels  that  his  own  fortunes  and  ancient 
Egypt's  power  are  lost  forever  : — 


HIS    TREATMENT    OF    HOLY    SUBJECTS.  19T 


"  Sometime  we  see  a  cloud  that's  dragonish; 
A  vapour,  sometime,  like  a  bear,  or  lion, 
A  towered  citadel,  a  pendant  rock, 
A  forked  mountain,  or  blue  promontory 
With  trees  upon't,  that  nod  unto  the  world 
And  mock  our  eyes  with  air;  thou  hast  seen  these  signs; 
They  are  black  vesper's  pageants." 
***** 

"  That  which  is  now  a  horse,  even  with  a  thought 
The  rack  dislimns,  and  makes  it  indistinct, 
As  water  is  in  water." 
***** 

"  Eros,  now  thy  captain  is 
Even  such  a  body  :  here  I  am  Antony ; 
Yet  cannot  hold  this  visible  shape." 

Now,  with  this  compare  the  hopeful,  faithful  spirit  in  a 
passage  which  has  been  considered,  perhaps,  the  most 
sublime  in  Shakspeare  : — 

"  Look  how  the  floor  of  heaven 
Is  thick  inlaid  with  patines  of  bright  gold ; 
There's  not  the  smallest  orb,  which  thou  behold'st, 
But  in  his  motion  like  an  angel  sings, 
Still  quiring  fo  the  young-eyed  cherubims  : 
Such  harmony  is  in  immortal  souls  ; 
But,  whilst  this  muddy  vesture  of  decay 
Doth  grossly  close  it  in,  we  cannot  hear  it." 

It  is  worthy  of  reflection  that  wherever  a  holy  subject 
is  touched  by  Shakspeare  it  is  with  a  deep  sentiment  of 
unaffected  reverence.  The  parting  thought  I  have  of  his 
genius  is  that  not  vainly  were  spent  in  the  comparative 
loneliness  of  the  Avon  village  those  last  silent  years  of 
him  who  could  place  on  the  tongue  of  his  saintly  Isabella 


198  LECTURE    FIFTH. 


such  fit  and  feeling  words  on  the  most  sacred  of  all  sacred 
themes : — 

"  Alas  ! — alas  ! 

Why,  all  the  souls  that  were,  were  forfeit  once, 
And  He  that  might  the  vantage  best  have  took 
Found  out  the  remedy.     How  would  you  be 
If  he,  which  is  the  top  of  judgment,  should 
But  judge  you  as  you  are ?     Oh,  think  on  that; 
And  mercy  then  will  breathe  within  your  lips, 
Like  man  new  made." 


V 


LECTURE  VI. 


Abundance  of  biographical  materials  —  Dr.  Johnson's  life  —  Milton 
among  the  great  prose  writers  —  Milton's  conception  of  his  calling 
as  a  poet  —  Poetry  the  highest  aim  of  human  intellect  —  Milton's 
youthful  genius  —  Study  of  Hebrew  poetry  —  Latin  poem  to  his  fa- 
ther —  The  rural  home  —  Poetic  genius  improved  by  study  —  Visits 
to  the  London  Theatres  —  Thoughtful  culture  of  his  powers  —  Al- 
legro and  Penseroso  —  Lycidas  —  Dr.  Johnson's  judgments  on  this 
poem  —  Masque  of  Comus  —  Faith  and  Hope  and  Chastity  —  The 
Hymn  on  the  Nativity  —  Power  and  Melody  of  the  Miltonic  versifi- 
cation —  Visit  to  Galileo  —  Milton  in  Rome  —  Story  of  Tasso's  life  — 
Influence  over  Milton  —  The  Rebellion  —  The  condition  of  the  Eng- 
lish monarchy  —  The  poet's  domestic  troubles  —  Sonnets  —  Johnson's 
criticisms  on  them  —  Milton's  Latin  despatches  —  Sonnet  on  the 
Piedmont  persecution  —  Coleridge  and  Wordsworth  on  the  moral 
sublimity  of  the  poet's  life  —  The  Paradise  Lost  —  The  character  of 
Satan  —  Coleridge's  criticism  —  The  grandeur  of  the  epic  —  The 
Paradise  Regained  —  The  Samson  Agonistes  —  Poetry  a  relief  to 
the  poet's  overcharged  heart. 

THE  birth  of  Milton,  in  the  year  1608,  dates  about 
eight  years  before  the  death  of  Shakspeare,  thus  pre- 
serving the  tie  of  time  between  the  three  most  glorious 
of  England's  poets,  —  Edmund  Spenser,  "William  Shak- 
speare, and  John  Milton.  In  the  last  lecture  I  had  occa- 
sion to  remark  on  the  well-known  dearth  of  personal  in- 
formation respecting  our  great  dramatic  poet.  As  to  our 
great  epic  poet,  the  contrast  in  this  particular  is  as  strik- 

199 


200  LECTUKE    SIXTH. 


ing  as  possible.  Of  Shakspeare  we  know  almost  nothing; 
of  Milton  we  know  almost  every  thing.  The  entire  col- 
lection of  his  poems,  the  equally  complete  collection  of 
his  prose  works,  his  official  writings,  his  private  cor- 
respondence, the  incidental  mention  by  his  contemporaries, 
his  autobiographical  notices, — all  are  preserved.  Stimu- 
lated by  this  abundance  of  biographical  materials,  and 
also  by  the  consideration  that  Milton's  character  wag 
illustrative  of  great  principles  in  various  departments  of 
human  thought,  an  unparalleled  number  of  biographers — 
from  his  own  nephew  down  to  not  a  few  authors  within 
the  last  few  years — have  made  his  memoir  their  chosen 
theme.  More  biographies  have  been  written  of  him 
than,  perhaps,  of  any  man  who  ever  lived.  I  have  had 
the  curiosity  to  enumerate  them,  and  could  mention  no 
fewer  than  twenty-five.  Of  all  these,  unhappily,  the  one 
most  read  is  the  one  most  uncongenial  and,  in  many 
points,  injurious, —  that  by  Dr.  Johnson.  With  every 
variety  of  opinion — poetical,  political,  moral,  and  theologi- 
cal,— are  these  biographies  tinctured.  They  have  issued 
from  the  pens  of  poets,  of  antiquaries,  of  divines,  of 
scholars,  of  painters,  from  Churchmen  and  Dissenters, 
from  infidels,  from  the  high-toned  aristocrat,  the  Whig, 
and  the  Chartist. 

Milton  is  a  vast  and  varied  theme.  He  may  be  viewed 
in  his  chief  glory  as  a  poet.  Again,  so  eventful  was  his 
life,  that  a  worthy  subject  of  study  is  his  character  as  a 
man.  And  if,  in  the  endeavour  to  promote  the  cause  of 
English  literature,  I  should  ever  be  led  to  enter  upon  the. 
series  of  great  prose  writers  in  our  language,  high  among 
them,  along  with  Bacon  and  Clarendon,  Hooker  and 
Jeremy  Taylor  and  Burke,  as  among  the  poets,  would  be 


MILTON'S    CONCEPTION    OF    HIS    CALLING.          201 


found  the  name  of  Milton.  Closely  as  these  three  repre- 
sentations of  the  character  of  Milton  are  connected, — each 
giving  its  illustration  to  the  other, — the  subject  to  which 
our  thoughts  are  now  to  be  directed  is  the  genius  of  his 
poetry. 

Important  as  were  many  of  the  other  labours  of  Mil- 
ton's, it  can  be  shown  that  at  no  period — in  the  buoyancy 
of  youth,  in  the  bitterness  of  controversy,  in  the  toil 
of  state  services,  whether  vindicating  his  private  good 
name  or  standing  forth  to  defend  the  English  people, 
in  favour,  or  in  poverty  and  persecution — did  he  forget 
that  the  great  business  of  his  existence  was  to  give  utter- 
ance to  the  promptings  of  imagination.  Poetry  was  his 
imperial  theme, — the  controlling  and  harmonizing  idea  of 
his  life;  and  the  aspirations  of  his  inmost  nature  may  be 
traced  throughout  all  his  writings,  no  matter  how  un- 
promising their  topic.  The  art  enters  into  his  scheme  of 
education,  "  not  as,"  he  protests,  "  the  prosody  of  a  verse 
among  the  rudiments  of  grammar,  but  that  sublime  art 
which  would  soon  show  what  despicable  creatures  our 
common  rhymers  and  play-writers  be ;  and  what  religious 
— what  glorious  and  magnificent — use  might  be  made  of 
poetry,  both  in  divine  and  human  things."  It  is  im- 
pressive to  hear  the  boy  Milton,  in  his  early  verses,  plead- 
ing with  his  father  that  poetry  is  a  holy  thing;  and, 
again,  to  hear  him  in  the  prime  of  manhood,  amid  the 
stern  words  of  one  of  his  controversial  publications,  an- 
nouncing that  "the  great  achievements  of  poetry  must 
rest  on  devout  prayer  to  that  Eternal  Spirit  who  can  en- 
rich with  all  utterance  and  knowledge,  and  sends  out 
his  seraphim  with  the  hallowed  fire  of  his  altar,  to  touch 
and  purify  the  lips  of  whom  he  pleases."  So  sublime  was 


202  LECTURE    SIXTH. 


Milton's  conception  of  his  chief  calling,  that  no  occasion 
of  public  moment  is  suffered  to  transcend  it  in  his 
thoughts.  "When  he  addresses  the  Parliament, — that 
noted  Parliament  composed  of  such  stern  stuff  as 
filled  the  breasts  of  Cromwell  and  Pym  and  Hollis 
and  Haslerig,  —  he  is  true  to  the  laureate  fraternity, 
and  cites  as  authority  to  that  tribunal  the  imaginative 
lore  of  "our  sage  and  serious  poet  Spenser."  And 
•when,  nearly  thirty  years  before  its  consummation,  the 
idea  of  his  "adventurous  song"  broke  the  bonds  of 
silence,  in  anticipation  that,  at  some  distant  day,  "  he 
might  take  up  the  harp  and  sing  an  elaborate  song  to 
generations," — and  when  he  spoke  of  being  led  by  the 
genial  power  of  nature  to  another  task  than  his  polemics, 
and  of  the  inward  promptings  that,  by  labour  and  intense 
study,  joined  with  the  strong  propensity  of  nature,  he 
might,  perhaps,  leave  something  so  written  to  after-times 
as  "they  should  not  willingly  let  die," — all,  not  less  than 
his  immortal  epic,  show  his  deep  belief  that  the  highest 
aim  of  human  intellect  is  poetry; — that  the  things  "of 
highest  hope  and  hardest  attempting  proposed  by  the  mind 
in  the  spacious  circuit  of  her  musings"  are  to  be  wrought 
out  by  the  imagination. 

So  far  back  as  we  are  able  to  penetrate  into  Milton's  early 
life,  there  may  be  discovered  in  his  very  boyhood  traces 
of  a  consciousness  that  he  was  endowed  with  an  imagina- 
tion for  which  mighty  works  were  in  prospect ; — an  en- 
dowment recognised  as  a  trust  committed  to  him  by  his 
Creator,  and  therefore  to  be  cherished  sedulously,  and 
held  sacred  from  the  pressure  of  outward  circumstances 
changing  the  direction  of  his  intellectual  destiny.  His 
whole  existence  was  a  preparation  for  the  stupendous 


MILTON'S  YOUTHFUL  GENIUS.          203 


achievement  of  the  "Paradise  Lost."  There  was  no  pre- 
cipitancy,— no  rash  forwardness  of  a  youthful,  misjudging 
ambition ;  but  a  reserve  and  dignity,  in  which  the  voice 
of  his  genius  seemed  to  be  whispering  that  his  hour  was 
not  yet  come.  In  studying  this  subject,  I  have  been 
deeply  impressed  with  a  sense  of  the  magnanimity  to  be 
traced  in  Milton's  childhood, — the  largeness  of  soul  be- 
longing to  the  little  boy.  And  how  does  this  appear? 
In  various  passages  of  his  prose  writings,  as  well  as  of 
his  poetry,  he  has  told  the  history  of  his  mind  almost  as 
far  back  as  his  memory  could  travel,  disclosing  how  the 
foundations  of  his  genius  were  laid ;  and  it  is  clear  that, 
in  those  early  years,  the  heaven-inspired  endowment  of  a 
poet's  spirit  was  there,  with  all  the  cravings  of  an  imagi- 
nation outstripping  its  own  creative  powers.  There  was 
in  Milton's  young  bosom  a  poet's  heart,  with  aspirations 
after  ideal  grandeur  and  goodness  and  beauty,  transcending 
its  early  strength,  and  therefore  seeking  its  nourishment, 
not  in  crude  and  forced  fruits  of  his  own  imagination,  but 
in  the  majestic  growth  of  the  high  poetry  of  all  ages.  The 
proof  of  the  might  of  Milton's  youthful  genius  was  his 
silence; — the  high-minded  reserve  of  one  who,  keeping 
the  hope  of  achievement  in  a  distant  day,  knew  that  it 
ill  became  him  to  thrust  forward  the  rash  and  unformed 
ambitions  of  boyhood.  The  vast  idea  of  the  functions  of 
poetry  which  early  took  possession  of  him  forbade  the 
thought  that  any  thing  he  could  then  produce  could  even 
approach  the  standard  of  his  own  conception.  He  felt 
that  he  must  await  his  time,  and  was  far  too  strong- 
minded  to  spend  his  efforts  in  juvenile  effusions,  and  then 
to  hang  over  them  with  the  weak  and  self-enamoured 
delusion  of  an  author's  vanity.  The  glory  of  Milton's 


204  L  E  C  T  U  K  E     S  I  X  T  IT. 


youth  is  not  precocious  poetry,  but  the  self-sacrificing 
devotion  of  a  student.  Before  the  twelfth  year  of  his 
life,  the  child's  tender  eyesight  had  received,  from  intense 
and  midnight  study,  the  first  fatal  injury  which  brought 
in  its  train  the  dark  calamity  of  hopeless  blindness. 
There  is  no  period  of  Milton's  long  career  more  finely 
characteristic  of  his  genius  than  when,  in  youth  and 
early  manhood,  he  may  be  imagined  seated  in  silence  at 
the  feet  of  the  great  masters  of  song  who  had  gone  before 
him.  It  was  their  voices  alone,  and  not  the  tender  notes 
of  his  own,  that  could  fill  the  large  spaces  of  his  heart. 
The  noblest  sounds  of  all  poetry — whether  of  a  remote 
antiquity  or  of  a  nearer  day  and  of  his  own  land — were 
perpetually  sweeping  over  his  spirit,  not  mingling  with 
any  utterance  of  his  young  imagination,  but  passing  on 
into  futurity  on  the  wings  of  hope,  to  meet  strains  of 
equal  glory,  that  were  yet,  in  the  far  distance,  to  rise  up 
in  the  poetry  of  the  "Paradise  Lost."  It  was  in  the 
sacred  stream  of  Hebrew  poetry  that  the  youthful  genius 
of  Milton  was  baptized :  it  was  the  divine  imagery  of 
the  Psalmist,  the  prophets,  and  of  him  who  saw  the 
Apocalypse,  which  deep-dyed  the  colour  of  his  imagina- 
tion. Nor  did  his  mind,  in  the  amazing  activity  of  his 
youth,  stop  there,  but,  winging  its  flight  over  profane  as 
well  as  sacred  soil,  held  communion  with  all  the  remnant 
glory  of  classical  poetry;  and  then,  after  having  thus 
travelled  into  the  ancient  inspirations  of  Palestine,  of 
Greece,  and  Rome,  it  dwelt,  too,  in  spirit  with  the  poets  of 
modern  Italy,  and  still  more  fervently  with  the  great  ones 
of  his  own  England.  The  poetry  of  every  age  and  of  every 
land  was  breathing  upon  his  soul,  feeding  and  fanning 
the  inward  fire  that  was  deeply  burning  there. 


LATIN    POEM    TO    HIS    FATHER.  205 


Of  Milton's  juvenile  poems  —  which  are  composed 
mostly  in  Latin  —  the  one  which,  perhaps,  has  chief 
interest,  is  that  addressed  to  his  father;  not  so  much 
because  of  any  extraordinary  poetic  merit,  as  for  its 
thoughtful  strain  of  filial  gratitude.  Parental  care  over 
the  course  of  a  child's  intellect  was  never  more  feelingly, 
more  honourably  acknowledged.  Some  few  misgivings 
appear  to  have  crossed  the  mind  of  Milton's  father, 
that  the  bent  of  his  genius  might  divert  him  from  the 
useful  pursuits  of  active  life ;  but  the  uncalculating  en- 
thusiasm of  the  youth's  larger  spirit  was  solicitous,  not  so 
much  to  plead  with  his  parent  against  such  opinions,  as 
to  vindicate  him  from  them, — to  persuade  him  that  such 
thoughts  did  not  in  truth  belong  to  one  who  had  so  con- 
genially cherished  his  child's  imaginative  studies.  Cow- 
per's  translation  of  the  poem  may  furnish  one  brief 
passage : — 

"No  !  howsoe'er  the  semblance  thou  assume 
Of  hate,  thou  hatest  not  the  gentle  Muse, 
My  father !  for  thou  never  bad'st  me  tread 
The  beaten  path  and  broad  that  leads  right  on 
To  opulence,  nor  didst  condemn  thy  son 
To  the  insipid  clamours  of  the  bar, — 
To  laws  voluminous  and  ill-observed, — 
But,  wishing  to  enrich  me  more,  to  fill 
My  mind  with  treasure,  led'st  me  far  away 
From  city  din  to  deep  retreats, — to  banks 
And  streams  Aonian, — and  with  free  consent 
Didst  place  me  happy  at  Apollo's  side." 

After  Milton's  childhood  in  London  and  his  collegiate 
career  of  several  years,  in  the  discipline  of  which  there 
appears  to  have  been  something  at  variance  with  his 
temperament,  he  came  back  in  the  prime  of  manhood 


206  LECTURE    SIXTH. 


to  the  home  of  his  father's  house.  That  home  was  now 
transferred  from  the  thronged  thoroughfares  of  the  me- 
tropolis to  the  tranquil  repose  of  a  country  residence. 
The  seven  cloistered  years  in  the  calm  retreats  of  one  of 
the  ancient  British  universities  were  followed  hy  five 
equally  studious  and  happier  years  spent  beneath  his 
father's  rural  roof  at  Horton.  This  was  probably  the 
happiest  period  of  his  life;  and  when,  in  anticipation, 
I  reflect  how,  at  an  advanced  stage  of  his  existence, 
his  imagination  gathered  the  vast  accumulations  of  his 
erudition  and  made  them  all  subservient  to  the  purposes 
of  poetry,  I  cannot  but  consider  these  rural  years  as 
among  the  most  influential  on  his  genius.  There  was 
shining  upon  him  the  light  of  the  happy  faces  of  both 
parents, — a  father  whose  strong  passion  for  music  was  in- 
herited by  the  poet,  a  mother  full  of  that  goodness  which, 
like  the  charitable  deeds  of  the  pious  George  Herbert, 
gave  thoughts  which  proved  music  at  midnight.  The 
bright  vision  of  an  English  landscape  was  ever  before  him ; 
and  still,  year  after  year,  was  his  mind  travelling  farther 
and  farther  into  the  limitless  regions  of  poetic  invention, 
imbuing  his  imagination  with  the  spirit  of  all  that  was 
beautiful  and  sublime  in  Hebrew  song  and  in  classical 
and  chivalrous  poetry. 

Amid  all  his  acquirements,  the  one  Volume  forever 
foremost  and  uppermost  in  his  thoughts  was  the  Bible. 
In  what  I  may  call  uninspired  inspiration,  his  favour- 
ites were  Homer  and  Pindar;  and  perhaps  more  than 
either  was  the  drama  of  Euripides,  "  sad  Electra's  poet/' 
and  Dante,  Petrarch,  and  Tasso,  and  the  three  illustrious 
predecessors  in  his  own  language,  with  whom  he  was  soon 
to  take  rank, — Chaucer,  Spenser,  and  Shakspeare.  His 


POETIC    GENIUS    IMPROVED    BY    STUDY.  207 


studies  roamed,  too,  through  the  shady  spaces  of  Philo- 
sophy, catching  from  the  divine  volumes  of  the  best  of  the 
Athenian  schools  that  platonic  spirit  which  may  be  traced 
in  much  of  the  early  English  poetry,  and  stored  his 
memory  with  all  that  history  recorded,  and  not  less  with 
the  lofty  fables  and  romances  which  recount  the  deeds  of 
knighthood.  It  was  to  those  five  tranquil  happy  years  at 
Horton,  beneath  the  unanxious  shelter  which  the  paternal 
roof  alone  can  give,  that  the  vast  opulence  of  Milton's 
intellect  was  chiefly  owing, — the  rich  amalgamation  of 
poetry  sacred  and  profane,  of  theology,  philosophy,  his- 
tory, fable,  of  science,  in  the  severe  and  exact  know- 
ledge of  abstractions,  and  in  the  fit  harmonies  of  music. 
The  important  moral  to  be  drawn  from  this  part  of  Milton's 
life  is,  not  that  education  can  ever  originate  the  natural 
endowment  of  a  poet's  genius,  but  how  that  gift  of  ima- 
gination, by  study  and  meditative  communion  outward 
and  inward,  may  be  strengthened,  enriched,  and  expanded, 
and  how  false  is  the  notion  that,  when  a  poet  speaks,  he 
speaks  as  it  were  from  some  lawless,  thoughtless,  ungo- 
vernable frenzy. 

The  intensity  of  Milton's  studies  at  his  rural  retreat  ap- 
pears to  have  been  relieved  by  occasional  visits  to  the  me- 
tropolis, where  he  refreshed  his  spent  spirits  by  witnessing 
the  theatrical  representations  of  the  English  drama,  then 
so  copiously  supplied  by  the  fresh  and  abundant  growth  in 
the  times  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  and  the  first  of  the  Stuarts' 
reigns.  For  two  of  the  great  English  dramatic  poets 
Milton's  admiration  is  recorded  in  a  well-known  passage 
in  one  of  his  shorter  poems,  referring  to  Jonson's  learned 
sock  and  the  "native  wood-notes  wild"  of  Shakspeare. 
His  visits  to  London  and  its  theatres  are  mentioned  in  one 


208  LECTUKE    SIXTH. 


of  his  Latin  poems,  in  a  few  lines.  I  may  quote  to  you 
from  Cowper's  English  version,  with  the  remark  that  it 
will  be  no  forced  fancy  to  apply  the  allusions  at  the  close 
to  the  tragic  fate  of  Romeo,  and  to  Banquo's  appalling 
presence  in  the  banquet-scene  in  Macbeth  : — 

"  If  impassioned  Tragedy  wield  high 
The  bloody  sceptre,  give  her  locks  to  fly 
Wild  as  the  winds,  and  roll  her  haggard  eye, 
I  gaze,  and  grieve,  still  cherishing  my  grief. 
At  times  even  bitter  tears  yield  sweet  relief; 
As  when,  from  bliss  untasted  torn  away, 
Some  youth  dies,  hapless,  on  his  bridal  day ; 
Or  when  the  ghost,  sent  back  from  shades  below, 
Fills  the  assassin's  heart  with  vengeful  woe." 

During  the  period  of  the  history  of  Milton's  genius 
when  dwelling  at  Horton,  its  silent  unseen  roots  were 
sinking  deeper  and  spreading  wider,  to  draw  nourishment 
from  the  richest  soil  of  ancient  and  modern  literature. 
The  mighty  growth  so  stoutly  rooted  was  at  last  begin- 
ning to  utter  sounds  from  its  waving  branches  and  from 
the  light  leaves  of  its  topmost  boughs;  the  life  which  had 
been  coursing  invisibly  in  its  channels  burst  forth  in  sur- 
passing luxuriance  of  blossom  and  of  flower.  While  Mil- 
ton had  practised  such  admirable  reserve  in  early  author- 
ship, because  he  had  "not  completed  to  his  mind  the 
full  circle  of  his  private  studies,"  still,  he  tells  us  him- 
self that  he  felt,  "by  every  instinct  and  presage  of  na- 
ture, which  is  not  wont  to  be  false,  that  what  had  embold- 
ened other  poets  to  their  achievements  might  with  the 
same  diligence  as  they  used  embolden  him."  With  all 
the  early  silence  of  his  muse,  his  spirit  was  sustained  in 
its  high  hopes  by  what  he  calls  "  his  honest  haughtiness 


THOUGHTFUL    CULTURE    OF    HIS    TOWERS.         209 


and  self-esteem  of  what  he  was  or  what  he  might  be." 
The  whole  life  of  Milton  was  a  life  of  principle,  and  not 
of  impulse,  or,  rather,  of  principle  controlling  impulse. 
He  was  silent  from  a  strong  sense  of  duty, — the  pious 
conviction  that  the  talent  committed  to  him  was  to  be 
neither  rashly  squandered  nor  basely  hid.  The  remon- 
strances of  an  affectionate  friend  caused,  on  one  occasion, 
some  misgivings  as  to  the  tardy  movings  of  his  genius, — 
"  a  certain  belatedness,"  as  he  called  it, — a  self-suspicion 
that  he  was  suffering  himself  to  dream  away  his  years 
"in  studious  retirement,  like  Endymion  with  the  moon;" 
but  these  misgivings  and  apprehensions  vanished  away 
with  the  reflection — the  precept  of  his  conscience — that 
the'  great  power  which  God  had  intrusted  to  him — a  poet's 
creative  imagination — was  to  be  kept  with  a  sacred  reve- 
rence and  religious  advisement.  It  is  in  this  thoughtful 
sense  of  responsibility  that  one  of  the  earliest  of  his 
severely  meditative  sonnets  is  conceived : —  . 

"  How  soon  hath  Time,  the  subtle  thief  of  youth, 
Stolen  on  his  wing  my  three-and-twentieth  year! 
My  hasting  days  fly  on  with  full  career, 
But  my  late  spring  no  bud  or  blossom  showeth. 
Perhaps  my  semblance  might  deceive  the  truth 
That  I  to  manhood  am  arrived  so  near, 
And  inward  ripeness  doth  much  less  appear, 
That  some  more  timely-happy  spirits  endueth. 
Yet,  be  it  less  or  more,  or  soon  or  slow, 
It  shall  be  still  in  strictest  measure,  even 
To  that  same  lot,  however  mean  or  high, 
Toward  which  Time  leads  me  and  the  will  of  Heaven; 
All  is,  if  I  have  grace  to  use  it  so, 
As  ever  in  my  great  Taskmaster's  eye." 

The   fruits  of  what  I  may  call  the  rural  period  of 

VOL.  I.  14 


LECTURE    SIXTH. 


Milton's  life  were  those  two  descriptive  lyrics,  "L'  Allegro" 
and  "  Penseroso,"  which  are,  perhaps,  better  known  than 
the  rest  of  his  short  poems,  and  which  I  shall  not  pause 
on  longer  than  to  say  that  their  charm  consists  in  a 
great  measure  in  their  true  picturing  of  actual  landscape, 
dappled  at  the  same  time  with  the  sunshine  of  a  poet's 
fancy, — presenting,  by  the  harmonizing  light  of  imagi- 
nation, the  ploughman  in  the  furrowed  field,  the  blithely- 
singing  milkmaid,  the  mower  whetting  his  scythe,  the 
shepherd  seated  under  the  hawthorn,  and  such  familiar 
rural  objects,  together  with  creatures  of  the  fancy, — the 
cherub  Contemplation  soaring  on  golden  wing,  the  moun- 
tain-nymphs and  the  wood-nymphs  in  their  hallowed 
haunts,  and  all 

"  Such  sights  as  youthful  poets  dream 
On  summer  eves  by  haunted  stream." 

Another  poem  of  the  same  period  is  the  monody 
"  Lycidas,"  composed,  it  will  be  remembered,  on  the  death 
by  shipweck  of  one  of  the  poet's  dearest  friends,  and  on 
which  was  pronounced  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  of 
all  the  perverse,  unimaginative,  wrong-hearted  and  wrong- 
minded  critical  judgments  which  Dr.  Johnson  apparently 
delighted  in  when  dealing  with  Milton's  poetry.  It  would 
consume  more  space  than  I  can  command  to  scrutinize 
that  criticism;  and,  therefore,  I  must  refrain  from  cha- 
racterizing it  as  I  think  of  it,  because  I  might  seem  to 
express  myself  more  strongly  than  I  could  make  good 
against  suqh  authority.  It  is  a  poem  which  has  not  only 
won  the  hearty  admiration  of  many  a  thoughtful,  imagi- 
native reader  of  poetry,  but  it  has  even  been  considered  by 
more  than  one  trustworthy  critic  (among  them  Hallaru) 


LYCIDAS.  211 

as  a  good  test  of  a  real  feeling  for  what  is  peculiarly 
called  poetry.  Yet  Johnson  had  the  hardihood  to  say  of 
it, — after  condemning  its  diction  as  harsh,  its  rhymes  as 
uncertain,  the  numbers  unpleasing,  and  its  want  of  feel- 
ing,— "In  'Lycidas'  there  is  no  nature,  for  there  is  no 
truth  ;  there  is  no  art,  for  there  is  nothing  new.  Its  form 
is  that  of  a  pastoral,  easy,  vulgar,  and  therefore  disgusting, 
with  a  yet  grosser  fault, — its  approach  to  impiety  by  the 
indecent  mingling  of  trifling  fictions  with  the  most  awful 
and  sacred  truths."  Who  could  have  dreamed  that  so 
bitter  a  rebuke  was  levelled  at  the  sublime  passage  in 
which,  after  sundry  mythological  personages,  by  an  effort 
of  imagination  appealing  to  the  sympathetic  activity  of 
the  reader's  imagination,  the  august  form  of  St.  Peter  is 
introduced  ? — 

"  Last  came,  and  last  did  go, 
The  pilot  of  the  Galilean  lake : 
Two  massy  keys  he  bore,  of  inetals  twain ; 
(The  golden  opes,  the  iron  shuts  amain.) 
He  shook  his  mitred  locks,  and  stern  bespake." 

It  would  not,  I  think,  be  without  interest  to  examine 
minutely  Dr.  Johnson's  judgments  upon  this  poem,  and 
to  trace  them  to  a  prejudiced  and  blind  misapprehension 
of  the  higher  aims  of  imagination, — a  dogmatic  obtuseness 
to  the  most  magical  spells  of  poetry.  But  too  many  of 
the  poet's  great  works  remain  before  me;  and  I  can  say  no 
more  on  this  point  than  that  any  one  who  desires  to  take 
home  to  his  heart  and  to  his  intellect  a  just  sense  of  the 
spirit  of  Milton's  poetry  must  look  at  it  with  other  vision 
than  the  bleared  eyes  of  that  eminent  writer  who  com- 
piled the  "  English  Dictionary." 


212  LECTURE     SIXTH. 


The  prime  of  Milton's  manhood  produced  also  the 
exquisite  masque  of  "Comus."  This  form  of  dramatic 
composition,  originally  introduced  from  Italy,  was  long 
a  favourite  in  England,  and,  being  less  restrained  than 
the  regular  drama  by  rules,  gave  wider  scope  to  poetical 
fancy.  The  severity  of  Milton's  well-disciplined  judg- 
ment was  well  fitted  to  check  its  tendency  to  fantastic 
extravagance ;  and  there  is  probably  no  poem  in  the  lan- 
guage better  calculated  to  delight  readers  of  almost  all 
moods  of  poetic  taste.  It  combines,  in  a  very  remark- 
able degree,  a  vivid  energy  of  imagination,  and  an  exu- 
berance of  all  that  is  fanciful  and  beautiful  in  imagery 
and  language,  with  a  majesty  of  meditative  philosophy 
diademed  with  the  radiant  glory  of  poetry.  "Comus" 
presents  not  a  few  beautifully-reflected  lights  of  Milton's 
poetic  studies.  You  may  discover,  at  times,  echoes,  as 
it  were,  of  the  sweet  modulations  of  Shakspeare's  sen- 
tences,— combinations  of  words  we  are  half  tempted  to 
appropriate  to  some  of  his  dramas ;  and,  again,  traces  of 
the  matchless  spirituality  of  Spenser.  In  the  lines, — 

"Virtue  could  see  to  do  what  Virtue  would 
By  her  own  radiant  light,  though  sun  and  moon 
Were  in  the  flat  sea  sunk ;  and  Wisdom's  self 
Oft  seeks  to  sweet  retired  solitude  ; 
Where,  with  her  best  nurse,  Contemplation, 
She  plumes  her  feathers  and  lets  grow  her  wings, 
That,  in  the  various  bustle  of  resort^ 
Were  all  too  ruffled,  and  sometimes  impaired. 
He  that  has  light  within  his  own  clear  breast 
May  sit  in  the  centre,  and  enjoy  bright  day," — 

We  are  here  reminded  of  the  Red-Cross  Knight  in  the 
"  Fairy  Queen," — his  glittering  armour  making  a  little 


FAITH    AND    HOPE    AND    CHASTITY. 


gleaming  light  in  the  den  of  Error,  or  of  that  image  of 
surpassing  beauty,  surpassing  Una's  angel-face  shining 
bright  and  making  a  sunshine  in  the  shady  place.  One  of 
the  most  beautiful  passages  in  the  poem  of  "  Comus" — 
beautiful  for  the  imaginative  blending  of  spiritual  and 
bodily  emotions — is  that  in  which  the  lady,  wandering  in 
the  darkness  of  the  forest  and  in  the  darkness  of  her  own 
benighted  loneliness,  beholds,  in  spirit,  gleams  from  her 
unembodied  guardians,  Faith  and  Hope  and  Chastity, 
hovering  round  her  footsteps,  and  at  the  same  time,  with 
her  Itodtty  sight,  the  dark  cloud  which  had  dimmed  the 
sky  brightening  with  sudden  moonlight : — 

"  A  thousand  fantasies 
Begin  to  throng  into  my  memory, 
Of  calling  shapes,  and  beckoning  shadows  dire, 
And  aery  tongues  that  syllable  men's  names 
On  sands  and  shores  and  desert  wildernesses. 
These  thoughts  may  startle  well,  but  not  astound 
The  virtuous  mind,  that  ever  walks  attended 
By  a  strong-siding  champion,  Conscience. 
Oh,  welcome,  pure-eyed  Faith  !  white-handed  Hope, 
Thou  hovering  angel,  girt  with  golden  wings ! 
And  thou,  unblemished  form  of  Chastity  ! 
I  see  ye  visibly,  and  now  believe 
That  He,  the  Supreme  Good,  to  whom  all  things  ill 
Are  but  as  slavish  officers  of  vengeance, 
Would  send  a  glistering  guardian,  if  need  were, 
To  keep  my  life  and  honour  unassailed. 
Was  I  deceived  ?  or  did  a  sable  cloud 
Turn  forth  her  silver  lining  on  the  night? 
I  did  not  err :  there  does  a  sable  cloud 
Turn  forth  her  silver  lining  on  the  night, 
And  casts  a  gleam  over  this  tufted  grove." 

The  virtue  of  that  passage   should  so  have  its  home  in 
every  heart  that  the  recollection  of  it  may  rise  up  and 


214  LECTURE    SIXTH. 


make  the  brightness  of  any  dark  but  moon-touched 
cloud  brighter  to  the  eye,  and  brighter  still  to  the  imagi- 
nation, as  it  floats  along  the  sky,  the  image  of  that  light 
which  beams  from  heaven  upon  the  heart  of  innocence. 

Much  that  is  prophetic  of  the  great  poem  of  his  later 
years  may  be  seen  in  the  spiritual  invention  of  this  early 
poem, — the  vision  of  bad  and  good  angels,  Comus  and  his 
brutish  rabble,  and  the  attendant  spirit  described  in  the 
opening  lines, — one  of 

"  Those  immortal  shapes 
Of  bright  aerial  spirits  ....  insphered 
In  regions  mild  of  calm  and  serene  air, 
Above  the  smoke  and  stir  of  this  dim  spot 
Which  men  call  earth." 

I  ought  not  to  quit  this  exquisite  poem  without  remark- 
ing how  perfectly  it  illustrates  the  magic  power  of  poetry 
to  shed  a  glory  on  things  which  are  lying  in  life's  daily 
prospect.  Here  is  a  poem  of  a  thousand  lines,  radiant 
with  fancy,  full  of  spirits  of  the  air,  and  fairy  spells,  and 
the  meditations  of  an  imaginative  philosophy.  And 
what  was  the  occasion  of  it  ?  A  simple  accident  in  the 
family  of  the  Earl  of  Bridgewater  when  keeping  his  court 
at  Ludlow  Castle.  His  daughter,  the  Lady  Alice  Egerton, 
and  her  two  brothers,  were  benighted  and  lost  their  way 
in  Haywood  Forest ;  and  the  brothers,  in  attempting  to 
explore  their  path,  left  their  sister  alone  in  a  tract  of 
country  inhabited  by  a  boorish  peasantry.  When  the 
fair  one's  heart  was  throbbing  in  the  lonely  wood,  how 
little  could  she  have  dreamed  that  a  poet's  words  were 
to  win  for  her  brighter  and  more  enduring  honour  than 
aught  that  wealth  or  heraldry  could  give  ! 


HYMN    ON    THE    NATIVITY.  215 


But  the  most  distinct  foreshadowing  of  the  immortal 
epic  poem  is  given  in  a  poem  shorter  and  earlier  than 
"  Comus/' — the  "  Hymn  on  the  Nativity."  It  has  very 
much  the  sound  of  "  Paradise  Lost"  set  to  a  lyrical 
measure.  When  listening  to  the  line  closing  one  of  the 
stanzas, — 

"  The  wakeful  trump  of  doom  must  thunder  through  the  deep," — 

I  fancy  I  can  hear  it  in  the  "  Paradise  Lost,"  composed 
some  forty  years  after,  reverberating  after  that  lapse  of 
years  in  a  passage  which  is  the  very  echo  of  it : — 

"  The  thunder, 

Winged  with  red  lightning  and  impetuous  rage, 
Perhaps  has  spent  his  shafts,  and  ceases  now 
To  bellow  through  the  vast  and  boundless  deep." 

The  tranquil  hours  at  Horton  were  drawing  to  a  close. 
The  happy  household  was  broken  by  the  death  of  the 
poet's  mother.  It  is  a  trait  of  tenderness  in  the  character 
of  one  whose  character  we  are  too  apt  to  regard  as  all 
severity,  that  it  was  not  until,  to  borrow  the  words  of  the 
Psalmist,  "  he  went  heavily,  as  one  that  mourneth  for 
his  mother,"  that  the  wish  for  foreign  travel  was  indulged 
by  Milton.  Having,  by  the  poems  already  mentioned, 
acquired  reputation  as  a  poet,  in  his  thirtieth  year  he  left 
England  to  travel  to  lands  whose  ancient  glory  was  still 
hanging  over  the  south  of  Europe.  It  would  be  interest- 
ing to  follow  him  in  imagination  as  he  roamed  through 
classic  lands,  a  young  enthusiast  in  the  full  flush  of 
fresh  poetic  genius,  the  strength  of  admirable  scholar- 
ship, and  in  the  prime  of  manly  beauty,  with  not  a 


LECTURE    SIXTH. 


wrinkle  by  the  cares  which  after  a  few  years  seamed  his 
brows, — to  stand  with  him  in  the  presence  of  Grotius, 
then  an  ambassador  to  the  Court  of  France, — and,  with 
still  deeper  interest,  to  accompany  him  at  Florence, 
visiting  Galileo  old,  a  prisoner  of  the  Inquisition  and 
fast  sinking  under  his  burdens  into  the  grave.  How 
must  the  young  poet's  heart,  full  as  it  ever  was  to  over- 
flowing with  the  passion  for  freedom, — the  single-spirited 
love  of  intellectual  freedom  and  truth, — have  throbbed 
in  the  visible  presence  of  the  victim  of  spiritual  despot- 
ism !  The  moral  dignity  of  this  sad  spectacle  sank 
deep  into  Milton's  imagination,  to  rise  up  again  at  another 
distant  day  to  furnish  a  fit  allusion  in  the  description  of 
the  broad  circumference  of  Satan's  shield, — 

"  Like  the  moon,  whose  orb 
Through  optic  glass  the  Tuscan  artist  views 
At  evening,  from  the  top  of  Fesol6, 
Or  in  Valdarno,  to  descry  new  lands, 
Rivers  or  mountains,  in  her  spotty  globe," — 

or  to  describe  the  seraph  Raphael  beholding  from  afar 
the  earth, — > 

"  As  when  by  night  the  glass 
Of  Galileo,  less  assured,  observes 
Imagined  lands  and  regions  in  the  moon/' 

We  follow  him  to  Venice,  and  to  Rome, — the  city 
of  more  than  twenty  centuries, — and  fancy  him  wrapt 
with  classical  associations,  feeding  his  genius  by  gazing 
on  the  sculptures  and  paintings  of  Michael  Angelo  and 
all  the  works  of  Italian  Art.  And  with  what  feeling  must 
that  spirit  of  his,  which  seems  to  have  chafed  under  any 


MILTON    IN     ROME.  217 


ecclesiastical  discipline,  have  been  stirred  within  the 
precincts  of  the  papal  metropolis !  Standing  in  the 
shadow  of  the  Vatican,  by  the  side  of  that  vast  dominion 
stretching  its  thin  spectral  arms  over  the  whole  earth, 
how  must  this  young  Briton,  this  Protestant,  this  In- 
dependent, have  scanned  the  visage  of  what  one  of  his 
contemporaries,*  with  an  image  of  Miltonic  energy,  de- 
scribed as  "  the  ghost  of  the  Roman  empire  seated  on 
the  ruins  thereof!" 

It  was  at  Rome  that  Milton  is  supposed  to  have  met 
and  contracted  a  lifelong  friendship  with  one  of  his  fel- 
low-countrymen, like  himself  a  young  traveller,  a  poet, 
and  a  republican, —  the  high-spirited  and  incorruptible 
Andrew  Marvell.  It  has  been  well  said  that  not  even 
in  the  proudest  days  of  her  republic  had  Rome  to  boast 
two  nobler  youths  than  Milton  and  Marvell.  The  young 
poet  proceeded  onward  to  the  south  of  Italy,  and  was 
welcomed  beneath  the  hospitable  roof  of  Manso,  Marquis 
of  Villa,  the  friend  and  biographer  of  Tasso.  It  was  the 
very  spot  where  the  great  Italian  poet,  a  few  years  before, 
completed  the  "  Jerusalem  Delivered ;"  and  it  has  been 
conjectured  that  there  first  dawned  upon  the  thought  of 
Milton  the  ambition  of  composing  an  epic  poem  in  the 
English  language.  It  seems  to  me  more  probable  that 
this  must  have  been  among  his  more  youthful  aspirations. 
But,  be  that  as  it  may,  it  was  first  announced  in  the 
Latin  poem  addressed  to  his  venerable  host  on  taking 
leave  of  him.  I  doubt  not,  that  standing  in  the  gardens 
overlooking  the  famed  prospect  of  the  bright  Bay  of 
Naples,  a  spot  but  lately  honoured  by  the  footsteps  of 

*  Hobbes. 


213  LECTURE    SIXTH. 


Italy's  last  best  poet,  Milton  heard  the  story  of  Tasso's 
romantic  life — his  imprisonment,  his  sorrows,  and  his 
madness — from  the  lips  of  Tasso's  aged  friend;  and, 
though  there  was  not  in  reserve  for  the  British  bard 
the  dark  destiny  of  the  dungeon  such  as  the  Italian 
had  been  immured  in,  yet  the  story  of  the  calamitous 
career  of  his  fellow-poet  must  have  been  so  impressed 
upon  his  feelings  as  to  rise  up  in  his  thoughts  in  after- 
years,  teaching  the  lesson  of  endurance  beneath  sorrows 
as  heavy  if  not  so  intense. 

Milton's  intention  of  visiting  Sicily  and  Greece  was 
abandoned  on  learning  that  afflictions  were  gathering  upon 
England;  and  he  turned  his  steps  homeward,  stopping 
to  visit  the  kinsfolk  of  one  of  the  friends  of  his  youth,  at 
their  mansion  on  the  Alpine  bank  of  the  Lake  of  Geneva. 
He  hastened  back  from  the  continent,  because,  said  he, 
"  I  thought  it  base  to  be  travelling  for  amusement  abroad 
while  my  fellow-citizens  were  fighting  for  liberty  at 
home."  When  he  set  foot  again  on  British  ground,  the 
banner  of  civil  war  had  been  flung  out  to  the  breeze;  for 
the  grand  Rebellion  was  begun. 

I  am  dealing,  let  it  be  remembered,  with  the  poet 
Milton.  When  I  reflect  how  mighty  and  how  many  were 
his  achievements  in  poetry, — how  they  are  all  complete, 
— none,  like  the  "  Canterbury  Tales"  and  the  "  Fairy 
Queen,"  splendid  fragments, — it  seems  almost  incredible 
that  nearly  thirty  years  of  his  life  were  almost  wholly 
turned  aside  from  the  great  highway  of  his  genius.  And 
why  was  this  ?  Was  it  because,  with  the  growth  of  in- 
tellectual pride,  he  was  learning  to  disparage  his  early 
aspirations  ?  Was  it  that  poetry  had  ceased  to  be  that 
divine  thing  the  love  of  which  had  once  shone  on  all 


CONDITION    OF    THE    ENGLISH    MONARCHY.         2!9 


his  paths  ?  No !  such  heartless  disloyalty  never  had  place 
in  his  thoughts.  He  never  forgot  that  he  had  an  endow- 
ment the  voice  of  which  was  meant  to  reach  to  distant 
ages  and  to  other  lands.  But  the  age  and  the  country  in 
which  his  lot  was  cast  had  instant  need  of  his  powers. 
He  beheld  the  people  struggling  for  freedom-  and  his 
heart,  with  all  its  high-wrought  enthusiasm,  was  with 
them.  The  monarchy  had  lost  much  that  might  make 
a  subject  proud.  The  high-minded  nobility,  which 
Milton  might  have  honoured  as  Spenser  had,  was  no 
longer  in  the  same  strong  sympathy  with  the  throne,  at 
once  gracing  and  fortifying  it.  The  Buckhursts  and  the 
Cecils  and  the  Egertons  had  gradually  been  thrust  aside, 
and  their  places  filled  by  worthless  and  profligate  favour- 
ites,— minions  like  Carr  and  Villiers.  The  low  and 
malignant  influences  which  overshadowed  the  court  of  the 
first  of  the  Stuarts  sealed  the  bloody  fate  of  the  second 
of  that  hapless  dynasty.  The  civil  war  began  with  court 
corruption;  and,  in  such  a  contest,  where  could  the  soul 
of  Milton  be  but  with  the  people?  He  turned  aside  from 
poetry  reluctantly,  but  dutifully :  he  felt  himself  pos- 
sessed of  a  power  which  fitted  him  to  be  the  intellectual 
champion  of  the  cause.  For  about  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury his  muse  was  almost  forsaken ;  and  during  this 
period  his  pen  produced  a  succession  of  controversial 
writings  on  various  subjects  as  powerful  as  ever  were  pro- 
duced. When  he  first  entered  on  this  stern  duty  it 
was  with  the  avowed  sense  of  inferiority  to  a  strength 
already  proved  in  poetry, —  the  better  task  which  the 
genial  power  of  nature  prompted,  having,  as  he  said,  the 
use,  as  it  were,  of  only  the  left  hand.  I  am  inclined, 
however,  to  think  that,  as  he  prosecuted  one  controversy 


220  L  E  C  T  r  R  E    S  I  X  T  II. 


after  another,  the  spirit  of  controversy  got  more  largely 
possession  of  him, — polemic  pride  growing  on  him, — 
exultation  at  finding  that  he  could  deal  blows  so  vigorous 
with  his  left  hand. 

Domestic  troubles  embittered  his  life.  It  is  one  of  the 
miseries  of  civil  war  that  it  sows  the  seeds  of  household 
animosities.  "  It  was  a  time/'  says  Milton,  in  one  of 
his  prose  works,  "when  man  and  wife  were  often  the 
most  inveterate  foes;  when  the  man  often  stayed  at  home 
to  tend  the  children,  while  the  mother  of  the  family  was 
busy  in  the  camp  of  the  enemy,  threatening  death  and 
destruction  to  her  husband."  It  was  Milton's  bad  fortune 
to  marry  in  such  times, — a  speedy  match  and  a  sorry 
marriage;  for  it  mated  a  republican  husband  with,  a 
royalist  spouse. 

During  these  agitated  years  of  Milton's  life  he  never 
faltered  in  the  duty  he  had  marked  out  for  himself;  but 
still  you  could  sometimes  discover  the  longings  of  the 
poet's  heart, —  something  showing  that  he  knew  how 
much  more  congenial  than  bandying  vulgar  and  abusive 
epithets  with  Salmasius,  or  toiling  in  the  secretaryship 
of  the  Council  of  the  Commonwealth  and  the  Protector- 
ate, would  it  be  for  him  (to  borrow  one  of  his  own  glow- 
ing phrases)  to  be  "  soaring  in  the  high  region  of  his 
fancies,  with  his  garland  and  singing-robes  about  him." 
Now  and  then  the  pent-up  fire  of  his  imagination  bursts 
out  in  a  strain  of  prose  which  is  poetry  in  all  but  poetry's 
metrical  music;  in  that  sublime  sentence,  for  instance, 
which  tells  how  high  were  the  expectations  his  enthusiasm 
had  conceived  of  Republican  England  : — "  Methinks  I  see 
in  my  mind  a  noble  and  puissant  nation  rousing  herself,  like 
a  strong  man  after  sleep,  and  shaking  her  invincible  locks. 


MILTON'S     SONNETS. 


Methinks  I  see  her  as  an  eagle  mewing  her  mighty 
youth,  and  kindling  her  undazzled  eyes  at  the  full  mi{l- 
day  beam,  purging  and  unsealing  her  long-abused  sight 
at  the  fountain  itself  of  heavenly  radiance." 

During  this  middle  period  of  Milton's  life,  when 
absorbed  with  political  and  theological  polemics  and  state- 
affairs,  the  only  sign  given  to  show  that  poetry  was  not 
wholly  suppressed  in  his  thoughts  is  to  be  found  in  the  few 
sonnets  dated  in  those  years,  and  which  are  distinguished 
for  a  sternness  of  conception  and  a  compressed  energy  of 
style  that  we  may  fancy  them  written  at  Cromwell's  council- 
board  and  with  the  same  pen  which  engrossed  some  stern 
despatch  from  the  Protector  to  his  fellow-sovereigns  on  the 
continent.  The  sonnets  of  Milton  are  few;  but  they  ren- 
dered this  important  service : — that  they  enlarged  the 
sphere  of  that  form  of  verse,  showing  that  it  was  not  con- 
fined to  amatory  poetry;  that  it  was  fitted  not  only  for  the 
expression  of  tender  emotions,  but  for  the  utterance  of  a 
statesmanly  philosophy,  dignified  rebuke,  the  deep,  Chris- 
tian meditation,  and  whatever  else  belongs  to  poetry's 
grandest  and  most  majestic  tones.  The  strain  which  before 
had  scarcely  served  more  than  a  lover's  uses  was  made  the 
fit  form  for  the  stern  Republican  to  address  Cromwell  and 
Fairfax  and  Sir  Harry  Vane.  There  is  a  contrast  as  wide 
as  between  the  temperaments  of  the  two  poets  between  the 
sonnet  of  Spenser  and  the  sonnet  of  Milton : — 

"A  glowworm  Lamp, 

It  cheered  mild  Spenser,  called  from  Faery-land 
To  struggle  through  dark  ways:  and,  when  a  damp 
Fell  round  the  path  of  Milton,  in  his  hand 
The  thing  became  a  Trumpet,  whence  he  blew 
Soul-animating  strains, — alas  !  too  few  !" 


LECTURE    SIXTH. 


There  is  recorded  in  Boswell's  Johnson  one  of  the 
most  ludicrous  literary  conversations  touching  Milton's 
sonnets  —  ludicrous  from  its  solemn  absurdity  —  to  be 
met  with  amid  all  the  absurdities  of  criticism.  "  Pray, 
sir,"  said  Miss  Hannah  More  to  Dr.  Johnson,  "  how  could 
a  poet  who  wrote  ( Paradise  Lost'  write  such  poor  sonnets  ?" 
"Madam,"  replied  the  critical  autocrat,  "Milton  was  a 
genius  that  could  cut  a  colossus  from  a  rock  but  could 
not  carve  heads  upon  cherry-stones."  Miss  Hannah 
More  was  a  sensible  as  well  as  a  very  pious  woman,  but 
on  this  occasion,  I  very  much  fear,  she  asked  a  foolish 
question ;  and  Dr.  Johnson  was  a  wise  and  a  learned  man, 
but  I  fear  the  folly  of  the  question  was  contagious  to 
the  answer.  If  Hannah  More  had  searched  Johnson's 
Dictionary  through,  she  could  not  have  selected  a  more 
inappropriate  epithet  than  in  speaking  of  such  poor  son- 
nets as  Milton's ;  and,  as  to  his  figure  of  the  carved 
cherry-stones,  let  us  look  at  one  of  these  condemned  pro- 
ductions. At  the  time  when  Milton  was  acting  as  the 
Latin  Secretary  of  the  government  of  Cromwell,  there 
was  given  one  of  the  highest  proofs  of  the  gigantic 
foreign  policy  for  which  the  proud  Protector  was  most 
illustrious.  The  persecuted  Protestants  in  the  valleys 
of  Piedmont  appealed  to  him  for  succour ;  and  the  stern 
voice  of  Cromwell  went  forth  to  every  potentate  of 
Europe,  bidding  him  know  that  he  meant  to  make  the 
cause  of  these  suffering  Christians  his  own : — 

"  When  Alpine  vales  threw  forth  a  suppliant  cry, 
The  majesty  of  England  interposed, 

And  the  sword  stopped ;  the  bleeding  wounds  were  closed, 
And  faith  preserved  her  ancient  purity." 


SONNET    ON    THE    PIEDMONT    PERSECUTION.        223 


The  spokesman  of  Oliver  Cromwell's  will  was  John 
Milton ;  and  there  seems  to  be  a  tone  of  imagination  in 
the  very  address  of  some  of  these  despatches ; — a  Miltonic 
aggregation  of  vague  geographical  names :  —  "  Oliver, 
Protector  of  the  Commonwealth  of  England,  to  the 
Emperor  of  all  Russia  and  all  the  Northern  climes ;". 
or  to  "  the  King  of  the  Swedes,  Goths,  and  Vandals ;" 
calling  to  their  remembrance  how  the  valleys  of  Piedmont 
were  besmeared  with  the  blood  and  slaughter  of  the 
miserable  victims  and  the  mountains  filled  with  the 
houseless  wanderers, — women  and  children  perishing  with 
hunger  and  cold  and  the  sword  of  the  persecutor.  The 
spirit  of  Milton  was  so  stirred  by  the  sufferings  of  the 
Waldenses  that  he  felt  the  need  of  more  even  than 
high-toned  mandates  to  earthly  monarchs ;  and  therefore 
there  went  up  from  the  depths  of  his  poet's  heart,  in  one 
of  his  mighty  sonnets,  the  fervid  imprecation  : — 

"  Avenge,  0  Lord,  thy  slaughtered  saints,  whose  bones 
Lie  scattered  on  the  Alpine  mountains  cold;— 
E'en  them  who  kept  thy  truth  so  pure  of  old, 
When  all  our  fathers  worshipped  stocks  and  stones, 
Forget  not :  in  thy  book  record  their  groans 
Who  were  thy  sheep,  and  in  their  ancient  fold 
Slain  by  the  bloody  Piedmontese,  that  rolled 
Mother  with  infant  down  the  rocks.     Their  moans 
The  vales  redoubled  to  the  hills,  and  they 
To  Heaven.     Their  martyred  blood  and  ashes  sow 
O'er  all  the  Italian  fields,  where  still  doth  sway 
The  triple  tyrant ;  that  from  these  may  grow 
A  hundredfold,  who,  having  learned  thy  way, 
Early  may  fly  the  Babylonian  wo." 

After  rehearsing  this  high  and  solemn  strain  of  poetry, 
I  can  scarcely  bring  myself  to  remind  you  of  the  pitiful 
comparison  of  Dr.  Johnson's  which  I  hoped  to  refute  by  it. 


221  LECTUUE     SIXTH. 


All  the  visionary  enthusiaru  of  Milton  in  the  cause  of 
political  liberty  was,  as  is  well  known,  wholly  defeated. 
We  come  now  to  the  last — the  darkest  and  yet  most 
glorious — portion  of  his  life,  divided  as  it  may  be  into 
three  chief  eras : — as  a  student,  as  a  statesman,  and  a 
solitary. 

There  are  few  finer  themes  for  contemplation  than  the 
hermit  old  age  of  John  Milton.  "  My  mind,"  said  Cole- 
ridge, "is  not  capable  of  forming  a  more  august  con- 
ception than  arises  from  the  contemplation  of  this  great 
man  in  his  latter  days.  Poor,  sick,  old,  blind,  slan- 
dered, persecuted, — in  an  age  in  which  he  was  as  little 
understood  by  the  party  for  whom,  as  by  that  against 
whom  he  had  contended, — and  among  men  before  whom 
he  strode  so  far  as  to  dwarf  himself  by  the  distance, — 
yet  still  listening  to  the  music  of  his  own  thoughts,  or, 
if  additionally  cheered,  yet  cheered  only  by  the  prophetic 
faith  of  two  or  three  solitary  individuals,  he  did  never- 
theless 

"  Argue  not 

Against  Heaven's  hand  or  will,  nor  bate  a  jot 
Of  heart  or  hope ;  but  still  bore  up,  and  steered 
Right  onward." 

Wordsworth,  too,  has  told  of  its  moral  sublimity : — 

"One  there  is  who  builds  immortal  lays, 
Though  doomed  to  tread  in  solitary  ways, 
Darkness  before,  and  Danger's  voice  behind ! 
Yet  not  alone,  nor  helpless  to  repel 
Sad  thoughts ;  for,  from  above  the  starry  sphere 
Come  secrets  whispered  nightly  to  his  ear; 
And  the  pure  spirit  of  celestial  light 
Shines  through  his  soul,  that  he  may  see  and  tell 
Of  things  invisible  to  mortal  sight' 


THE    PARADISE    LOST.  225 


I  have  followed  the  progress  of  Milton's  genius,  dwell- 
ing on  some  of  his  neglected  pieces,  till  but  scant  space 
is  left  for  thought  on  his  great  poem.  The  gradual 
ascent  'to  the  highest  point  of  his  fame  being  accom- 
plished, no  more  can  now  be  done  than  to  take  a  brief 
prospect  from  the  pinnacle  of  this  holy  mount.  The 
"  Paradise  Lost"  was  given  to  the  world  in  1667,  the 
author  being  then  on  the  verge  of  sixty  years.  I  cannot 
bring  myself  to  believe  for  one  moment  that  he  had  ever 
relinquished  his  early  ambition  of  an  English  epic  poem ; 
but  it  is  probable  that  the  work  was  not  begun  till  the 
restoration  of  the  monarchy  threw  the  Republican  back 
into  meditative  solitude  and  closed  the  anxieties  of  his 
long  and  embittered  disputations.  I  shall  not  be  so  pre- 
sumptuous as  to  enter  now  on  any  even  general  criticism 
of  so  elaborate  a  poem.  The  hurried  comment  I  might 
at  present  make  would  be  but  a  poor  substitute  for  the 
ample  criticism  which  should  be  devoted  to  such  a  theme : 
its  sublimity,  its  beauty,  are  familiar  to  all.  But  grievous 
injustice  is  done  to  the  poem  by  reading  detached  por- 
tions of  it ;  for  perhaps  above  all  other  epic  poems  it  is 
admirable  for  the  composition  of  it : — I  mean  its  entire 
structure,  and  the  order  and  succession  of  its  parts.  .  It 
combines  in  this  respect  the  dramatic  with  the  epic  spirit; 
and  I  find  myself  always  impressed  by  it  as  by  the 
perusal  of  a  tragedy,  which,  indeed,  was  the  form  ori- 
ginally contemplated  by  Milton.  It  is  a  poem  demanding 
from  its  reader  the  most  strenuous  activity  of  a  reader's 
imagination ;  otherwise  he  will  find  himself  left  immea- 
surably below  the  range  of  its  inventions.  For  instance : 
in  the  wondrous  imaginations  of  Satan's  voyage, — first 
exploring  his  way  on  swift  wings,  one  while  sinking  into 
VOL.  i.  15 


LECTURE    SIXTH. 


the  deep,  and  then  rising  to  the  fiery  concave, — still  with- 
in his  own  vast  realms  of  Pandemonium ; — after  he  has 
passed  hell's  gates,  standing  with  awe  and  looking  into 
the  wild  abyss  before  venturing  to  pass  the  dark  pavilion 
of  Chaos; — then,  springing  upward  like  a  pyramid  of  fire 
and  reaching  the  utmost  orb  of  the  regions  of  light,  the 
fiend  weighs  his  spread  wings  to  behold  afar  off  the  em- 
pyreal heaven : — 

"And,  fast  by,  hanging  in  a  golden  chain, 
This  pendent  world,  in  bigness  as  a  suir 
Of  smallest  magnitude  close  by  the  moon." 

Now,  in  this  the  imagination  is  apt  to  falter  and  supply 
the  thought  that  by  "  this  pendent  world"  is  meant  this 
one  little  planet  of  ours, — the  earth.  But  Milton's  ima- 
gination knew  no  such  circumscription;  and  his  concep- 
tion was — not  the  earth,  not  even  the  space  filled  by  the 
sun,  with  all  its  planets  and  their  satellites,  but — the  vast 
orb  of  myriads  of  suns,  the  measureless  space  of  count- 
less solar  systems ;  and  all  this  was  meant  when  the  arch- 
fiend was  gazing  at 

"  This  pendent  world,  in  bigness  as  a  star 
Of  smallest  magnitude  close  by  the  moon." 

Again :  what  a  transcendent  effort  is  that  by  which,  in 
recounting  the  hosts  of  Pandemonium,  the  poet's  imagina- 
tion, grasping  the  whole  mythology  of  classical  antiquity, 
thrusts  it  with  all  its  glory  down  into  hell,  and  ranges  the 
gods  of  Greece — Olympic  Jove  himself — with  the  inferior 
powers  of  the  apostate  angels !  In  an  early  lecture  of 
this  course,  when  attempting  to  portray  the  faculty  of 
imagination,  I  claimed  for  it  the  power  of  either  giving 
dignity  and  beauty  to  life's  daily  and  common  events,  or, 


THE    CHARACTER    OF    SATAN.  237 


rising  higher,  of  beholding,  as  an  angel  might,  this  earth, 
with  its  dark  sea,  with  all  that  is  vile  upon  its  surface, 
and  with  the  nations  of  the  dead  mouldering  beneath,  yet 
a  star  glittering  in  the  firmament  and  peopled  with  beings 
redeemed  for  immortality.  I  recur  to  the  thought  be- 
cause the  poetic  inventions  of  Milton  are  authoritative — to 
show  that  I  was  indulging  in  no  irrational  rhapsody.  Be- 
hold, for  instance,  how  he  has  enveloped  in  a  radiant  glory 
the  common  incident  which  was  the  groundwork  of 
"Comus."  And,  in  "Paradise  Lost,"  how  the  angels 
speak  as  if  their  words  came  indeed  from  an  angel's 
heart ! — they  tell  of  things  as  if  seen  with  an  angel's 
vision.  When  Raphael,  the  sociable  spirit,  rises  from  his 
conference  with  Adam,  it  is  because  to  his  eye 

"  The  parting  sun, 

Beyond  the  earth's  green  cape  and  verdant  isles 
Hesperian,  sets, — my  signal  to  depart." 

And  when  he  cautions  our  first  parents  to  be  lowly  wise, 
observe  how  he  speaks  of  the  earth  as  if  he  had  beheld 
it  looking  from  some  other  sphere,  when  he  bids  Adam 
not  to  seek  to  know 

"  Whether  the  sun,  predominant  in  heaven, 
Rise  on  the  earth,  or  earth  rise  on  the  sun ; — 
He  from  the  east  his  flaming  road  begin, 
Or  she  from  west  her  silent  course  advance 
AVith  inoffensive  pace,  that,  spinning,  sleeps 
On  her  soft  axle,  while  she  paces  even 
And  bears  thee  soft  with  the  smooth  air  along." 

But  no  product  of  the  Miltonic  imagination  needs 
deeper  study  than  the  character  of  Satan,  the  chief 
fiend,  wrapt  in  the  twilight  of  original  brightness  in  dim 
eclipse,  a  lurid  glory  giving  him  a  grandeur  such  as 


228  LECTURE    SIXTH. 


poetry  had  never  created  before ;  for  it  was  the  image 
of  no  less  than  "  archangel  ruined,"  whose  "  face  deep 
scars  of  thunder  had  intrenched."  It  was  an  embodi- 
ment of  poetic  sublimity — a  might  of  endurance,  of 
boldness,  and  of  pride — which  awes  the  imagination,  and, 
at  times,  wildly  stirs,  not  a  sympathy,  but  some  sort  of 
feeling  for  the  ruined  angelic  splendour.  How  can  we 
repress  some  such  emotion  at  that  passage  where,  stand- 
ing on  the  beach  of  the  inflamed  sea,  and  rising  to  his 
full  height  with  monarchal  pride,  Satan  summons  the 
entranced  legions?  —  a  passage  demonstrating,  too,  the 
wondrous  opulence  of  Milton's  imagination,  pouring  out 
one  illustration  after  another  as  they  rise  up  in  his  mind 
with  the  recollection  of  his  Italian  travels  and  of  his 
classical  and  Biblical  learning, — a  profusion  of  thick- 
sown  similitudes, — the  leaf-strewn  brooks  of  Vallombrosa, 
the  scattered  sedge  of  the  Red  Sea  vexed  by  the  stormy 
Orion  and  the  floating  carcasses  of  Pharaoh's  horsemen : — 

"  On  the  beach 

Of  that  inflamed  sea  he  stood,  and  called 
His  legions, — Angel-forms,  who  lay  entranced, 
Thick  as  autumnal  leaves  that  strow  the  brooks 
In  Vallombrosa,  where  the  Etrurian  shades 
High  overarched  embower ;  or  scattered  sedge 
Afloat,  when  with  fierce  winds  Orion  armed 
Hath  vexed  the  Red  Sea  coast,  whose  waves  o'erthrew. 
Busiris  and  his  Memphian  chivalry, 
While  with  perfidious  hatred  they  pursued 
The  sojourners  of  Goshen,  who  beheld 
From  the  safe  shore  their  floating  carcasses 
And  broken  chariot-wheels;  so  thick  bestrown, 
Abject  and  lost,  lay  these,  covering  the  flood, 
Under  amazement  of  their  hideous  change. 
He  called  so  loud,  that  all  the  hollow  deep 
Of  Hell  resounded." 


COLERIDGE'S    CRITICISM. 


This  burst  of  what  may  be  called  the  material  sublime 
— arising  from  the  grandeur  of  space  and  sound,  things 
of  sense — is  followed  soon  by  a  burst  of  the  moral 
sublime;  for,  when  the  myriads  of  immortal  spirits 
thronged  around  their  chief,  and  the  peerage  of  Pande- 
monium stood  mute  in  expectation  of  Satan's  voice, — 

"  Thrice  he  assayed,  and  thrice,  in  spite  of  scorn, 
Tears,  such  as  angels  weep,  burst  forth." 

It  is  an  observation  of  Coleridge's  that  it  is  very  re- 
markable that  in  no  part  of  his  writings  does  Milton  take 
any  notice  of  the  great  painters  of  Italy,  nor,  indeed,  of 
painting  as  an  art;  while  every  other  page  breathes  his  love 
and  taste  for  music ;  and  that,  in  the  "  Paradise  Lost," 
Adam  bending  over  the  sleeping  Eve  was  the  only  proper 
picture  he  remembered.  This  criticism  was  made  in 
forgetfulness  of  one  of  the  most  picturesque  passages  in 
that  or  any  poem, —  Adam  hearing  the  first  report  of 
Eve's  transgression.  It  will  be  remembered  that 

"  Adam  the  while, 

Waiting  desirous  her  return,  had  wove 
Of  choicest  flowers  a  garland,  to  adorn 
Her  tresses,  and  her  rural  labours  crown, 
As  reapers  oft  are  wont  their  harvest-queen. 
Great  joy  he  promised  to  his  thoughts,  and  new 
Solace  in  her  return,  so  long  delayed ; 
Yet  oft  his  heart,  divine  of  something  ill, 
Misgave  him ;  he  the  faltering  measure  felt, 
And  forth  to  meet  her  went,  the  way  she  took 
That  morn  when  first  they  parted." 

The  tragic  tale  of  the  unresisted  temptation  is  soon  told : — 

"Adam,  soon  as  he  heard 
The  fatal  trespass  done  by  Eve,  amazed, 
Astonied  stood  and  blank,  while  horror  chill 


230  LECTURE    SIXTH. 


Ran  through  his  veins  and  all  his  joints  relaxed. 
From  his  slack  hand  the  garland  wreathed  for  Eve 
Down  dropped,  and  all  the  faded  roses  shed. 
Speechless  he  stood,  and  pale." 

It  should  not  be  overlooked  how  far  the  subject  of  our 
English  epic  transcends  that  of  all  others.  In  com- 
parison, how  does  the  Trojan  war,  the  wanderings  of  Ulys- 
ses, of  tineas,  or  the  argument  of  either  of  the  great 
Christian  epics  of  modern  Italy,  dwindle  by  the  side ! 
The  "  Paradise  Lost"  is  the  story  of  the  deepest  tragedy 
this  earth  has  ever  known, —  the  tragedy  which  has 
caused  all  other  tragedies.  While  there  have  been  flash- 
ing over  it  the  sullen  fires  from  the  dark  abodes  of  the 
rebel  angels  and  from  the  presence  of  Satan,  there  is  shed 
on  the  catastrophe  a  soft,  pathetic  light,  giving  to  the 
poem  that  sweet  and  gentle  ending  which,  familiar  though 
it  be,  rather  would  I  pass  by,  as  I  am  doing,  a  thousand  other 
things  than  it.  The  angry  contentious  of  this  unhappy 
pair  had  passed  away;  love,  which  had  fled  with  their 
innocence,  came  back  with  their  submissive  repentance. 
God  in  his  mercy  sent  an  angel  to  speak  hope  to  the 
crushed  spirit  of  Adam.  He  sent  a  happy  dream  to  give 
hope  to  the  heart  of  Eve.  The  two  whom  sympathy 
of  happiness  had  united  were  now  one  in  the  sympathy 
of  sorrow.  Mercifully  they  were  led  forth  at  the  eastern 
gate;  so  that  when  hand  in  hand  they  wandered  solitary, 
no  longer  blessed  with  the  visible  presence  of  God  or  his 
angels,  their  tear-dimmed  eyes  might  turn  to  the  Orient, 
where  the  far-off  light  of  the  promised  redemption  was 
rising  on  their  darkened  hearts  : — when,  the  cherubim 
descending  to  their  station,  and  the  brandished  sword  of 
God  blazing  fierce  as  a  comet, — 


THE    PARADISE    REGAINED.  231 


"In  cither  hand  the  hastening  angel  caught 
Our  lingering  parents,  and  to  the  eastern  gate 
Led  them  direct,  and  down  the  cliff  as  first 
To  the  subjected  plain  ;  then  disappeared. 
They,  looking  back,  all  the  eastern  side  beheld 
Of  Paradise,  so  late  their  happy  seat, 
Waved  over  by  that  flaming  brand  ;  the  gate 
With  dreadful  faces  thronged  and  fiery  arms. 
Some  natural  tears  they  dropped,  but  wiped  them  soon. 
The  world  was  all  before  them  where  to  choose 
Their  place  of  rest,  and  Providence  their  guide : 
They,  hand  in  hand,  with  wandering  steps  and  slow, 
Through  Eden  took  their  solitary  way." 

Of  Milton's  later  poem — the  "  Paradise  Regained" — I 
have  space  but  for  one  remark.  It  has  never  attained  its 
just  fame,  because  it  is  forever  forced  into  irrational  compa- 
rison with  the  "  Paradise  Lost."  It  is  essentially  different 
in  its  whole  character,  for  the  simplest  of  all  reasons, — its 
adaptation  to  the  nature  of  its  subject ;  a  difference  ana- 
logous, as  has  been  remarked,  to  that  between  the  style  of 
the  Old  and  New  Testaments.  The  poem  is  entitled  to  a 
judgment  by  a  positive  standard,  and  thus  only  can  justice 
be  rendered  to  its  admirable  meditative  imagination. 
There  is  a  tradition  that  the  poet  himself  always  denied 
its  inferiority  to  the  "Paradise  Lost."  I  am  strongly 
inclined  to  think  that  this  meant  that  he  resented  what 
he  knew  was  a  senseless  comparison  of  two  poems  intrin- 
sically different.  The  "  Paradise  Regained"  gives  no 
sanction  to  the  opinion  that  it  betrays  a  failure  of  the 
author's  genius.  It  was  an  appropriation  of  his  powers 
to  a  new  and  different  kind  of  poetic  creation. 

The  last  of  his  poems  was  the  "  Samson  Agonistes," — 
an  English  drama  in  the  severest  classical  form  of  the 
Greek  tragedy.  The  student  of  Milton's  poetry  will 


232  LECTURE    SIXTH. 


read  it  with  enthusiasm,  were  it  only  for  its  shadowing 
forth  the  author's  own  fortunes, — his  dearest  hopes  be- 
trayed, and  left,  old  and  blind,  among  enemies.  The  poet 
was  a  man  to  bow  without  repining  to  his  Maker's  will, 
dark  as  that  will  might  be ;  and  I  cannot  help  thinking 
that  this  tragic  drama  was  an  invention  for  him  to  relieve 
his  overcharged  heart, — to  utter  complaints, — to  say  more 
bitter  things  with  the  tongue  of  Samson  than  with  his 
own.  We  can  fancy  it  the  voice  of  John  Milton  when 
the  once  indomitable  but  now  captive  Israelite  breaks 
for  thin  that  piteous  and  withal  majestic  utterance  of  a 
blind  man's  agony  : — 

"  Oh,  dark,  dark,  dark,  amid  the  blaze  of  noon, 
Irrecoverably  dark,  total  eclipse 
Without  all  hope  of  day ! 
'  Let  there  be  light,  and  light  was  over  all.' 
Why  am  I  thus  bereaved  thy  prime  decree  ? 
The  sun  to  me  is  dark 
And  silent  as  the  moon, 
When  she  deserts  the  night, 
Hid  in  her  vacant  interlunar  cave." 

In  the  early  part  of  this  lecture  I  spoke  of  what  had 
struck  me  as  the  magnanimity  of  Milton's  boyhood. 
That  magnanimity  had  grown  with  the  labours  and  af- 
flictions of  his  eventful  life;  and  the  parting  thought  I 
have  of  this  great  poet  finds  expression  in  the  last  words  of 
his  last  poem  : — that  he  was  one  whom  God 

"With  peace  and  consolation  hath  dismissed, 
And  calm  of  mind,  all  passion  spent.'' 


LECTURE  VII. 

Iflrnor  |)odrg  cf  %  Sffanittntb  Crainrg. 

Character  of  the  transition  from  Milton  to  Dryden — The  rank  of 
Dryden  among  the  poets — English  imagination  in  his  age — In- 
fluence of  Milton's  genius  upon  his  contemporaries  and  successors — 
Wordsworth's  apostrophe  to  Milton — Decline  of  imaginative  energy 
— Metaphysical  poetry — Daniel  and  Drayton — Drayton's  Polyolbion 
— Lamb's  notice  of  this  poem — Donne  and  Cowley — The  sin  of 
this  school  of  poetry — Poetry  a  subject  for  studious  thoughtful- 
ness —  Donne's  "Lecture" — Character  of  Cowley's  genius  —  His 
prose  essays — "  The  Complaint" — The  conceits  of  the  poetry  of 
this  period — Herbert's  lines  on  Virtue;  Life;  Peace — Herbert's 
self-criticism — Sacred  poetry  of  the  seventeenth  century — Robert 
Herrick — His  Litany  to  the  Holy  Spirit — The  music  of  his  verse — 
Literary  interest  of  the  Civil  War — Lord  Chatham  on  the  character 
of  this  struggle — The  Puritan  system  adverse  to  poetic  culture — 
Richard  Lovelace — "To  Althea,  from  prison" — George  Wither — His 
character — His  address  to  his  Muse — A  tribute  to  Wither1  s  me- 
mory. 

Ix  tracing  the  progress  of  English  Poetry  thus  far, 
there  has  heen  no  occasion  for  doubt  in  selecting  the 
poets  who  may  justly  he  deemed  its  representatives  in 
different  eras.  The  light  of  poetic  inspiration  first  held  on 
high  hy  old  Chaucer  was  given  in  succession  to  the  giant 
hands  of  Spenser,  of  Shakspeare,  and  of  Milton, — men 
of  such  might  that  no  one  ventures  to  question  the  supre- 
macy of  any  of  them  in  his  own  age.  We  have  moved  on, 

233 


234  LECTURE    SEVENTH. 


turning  over  the  annals  of  a  dynasty  of  noble  poets, — the 
noblest  of  their  kind.  Preserving  the  historical  character 
of  these  lectures,  I  pass  from  the  name  of  Milton  to  that 
of  Dryden.  But  this  is  a  transition  not  to  be  made  with- 
out pausing  to  reflect  on  the  changes  that  at  that  period 
were  beginning  to  pass  over  the  spirit  of  the  English 
Muse.  The  transition  is  a  transition  of  descent :  it  will 
bring  us  down  into  a  lower  region.  We  have  been  dwell- 
ing among  the  mountains,  and  have  caught  the  voice  of 
poetry  carried  on  from  one  lofty  peak  to  another;  and, 
after  listening  to  the  solemn  strains  of  the  "  Paradise 
Lost"  echoing  in  the  upper  air,  we  hear  the  next  sound, 
far  away,  rising  up  in  the  lowlands.  Is  it  then  at  all 
surprising  that  I  am  approaching  this  period  of  English 
poetry  with  reluctance  ?  I  find  I  am  making  excuses  to 
myself  for  lingering  a  while  longer  in  the  high  and  pure 
atmosphere, — a  sunny  region  full  of  life, — when  the  path 
I  must  follow  leads  precipitately  down  into  a  valley  not 
wholly  free  from  unwholesome  shades  and  fogs  obscuring 
the  placid  canopy,  of  the  blue  sky. 

The  most  indulgent  criticism  appropriates  to  Dryden 
no  higher  station  than  the  first  rank  among  the  secondary 
English  poets.  His  period  is  the  last  thirty  years  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  The  character  of  the  literature  was 
undergoing  a  great  change.  The  spirit  of  the  nation,  too, 
was  changing;  and  its  poetry  especially  betrayed  sympathy 
and  suffering  with  the  change,  for  it  was  losing  much  of 
its  distinctive  character.  Public  opinion  and  feeling 
were,  by  the  operation  of  causes  remaining  to  be  noticed, 
abased  and  corrupted ;  and  poetry  did  not  escape  the  con- 
tagion. The  high  moral  tone  of  the  Muse  of  the  great 
earlier  poets  was  lowered;  and  English  imagination,  part- 


THE    POETICAL    RANK    OF    BRYDEN.  235 


ing  with  a  portion  of  its  native  strength  and  simplicity, 
became  at  once  a  meaner  and  more  mechanical  thing. 
The  change  was  not  a  sudden  one ;  at  least  there  had 
been  indications  of  it  at  a  much  earlier  period;  and  I 
propose,  therefore,  before  closing  the  examination  of  the 
poetry  of  the  seventeenth  century  with  Dryden,  to  glance 
over  the  previous  portions  of  that  century,  for  the  purpose 
of  ascertaining  what  were  the  various  manifestations  of 
its  literature,  and  especially  those  tending  to  form  its 
fashion,  at  the  close  of  that  age.  In  this  it  will  be 
necessary  to  notice  some  of  the  poets  whom  I  passed  by 
when  I  entered  on  the  subject  of  my  last  lecture.  It 
will  be  perceived  that  I  am  taking  the  liberty  of  devi- 
ating a  little  from  the  original  prospectus  of  the  course,  in 
devoting  one  lecture  (the  present)  to  the  minor  poetry  of 
the  seventeenth  century ;  it  being  my  intention  to  appro- 
priate the  next  lecture  to  the  poetry  of  both  Dryden  and 
Pope,  the  times  of  the  Restoration  and  of  Queen  Anne. 

In  taking  a  retrospect  of  the  literary  character  and 
influence  of  any  age,  it  is  necessary  to  guard  against 
falling  into  the  error  of  supposing  that  an  author  whose 
fame  has  been  realized  by  posterity  possessed  equal  repute 
and  authority  in  his  own  day.  I  selected,  for  instance, 
without  hesitation,  Milton,  as  the  great  poet  of  the 
middle  of  the  seventeenth  century;  and  yet  the  poetry 
of  Milton  was  far  from  being  the  influential — the  domi- 
nant— poetry  of  those  times.  Smaller  stars  were  in  the 
ascendant.  When  we  come,  therefore,  to  the  transition 
from  Milton  to  Dryden,  the  poetry  of  the  latter  differs  so 
essentially  from  the  former  that  one  would  be  at  fault  in 
comprehending  the  change  in  so  short  a  space  of  time, 
unless  we  turn  to  other  poetry  to  discover  in  it  some 


LECTURE    SEVENTH. 


intimations  of  the  poetic  style  with  which  the  century 
closed.  If  the  genius  of  Milton  had  early  gained  the 
same  hold  it  has  since  acquired  over  the  thoughtful  admi- 
ration of  later  times,  English  poetry  never  could  have 
assumed  so  readily  the  guise  it  wore  in  the  years  imme- 
diately subsequent  to  the  "Paradise  Lost."  It  seems 
strange,  but,  I  believe,  correct,  when  I  say  that  I  can 
discover  no  influence  exerted  by  the  great  productions 
of  Milton  upon  the  character  of  his  poetical  contempo- 
raries or  immediate  successors.  Indeed,  he  lived  and 
died  with  as  little  congeniality  manifested  by  the  world  as 
ever  served  to  sustain  the  heart  of  genius.  Happily  for 
the  world  of  all  ages,  that  heart  had  a  better-sustaining 
power,  in  the  sense  of  its  own  majesty,  and  its  trust  upon 
heavenly  guardianship.  Excepting  a  few  true  friends,  such 
as  the  Republican  poet  Marvell  and  the  kind-hearted 
Ellwood,  (a  name  which  may  be  dear  not  only  to  his  own 
Society  of  Friends,  but  to  all  that  speak  the  English 
tongue,  were  it  only  for  the  happy  prompting  of  the  idea 
of  "  Paradise  Regained,") — with  the  exception  of  a  few 
like  these,  Milton  earned  no  sympathies  for  the  muse  of 
his  later  years, — the  great  years  of  his  poetic  career. 
His  spirit  was  aloof  from  all  their  modes  of  thought 
and  feeling;  a'nd,  thus  contemplating  him,  has  Words- 
worth finely  apostrophized  his  illustrious  predecessor, 
Milton  ; — 

"Thy  soul  was  like  a  star,  and  dwelt  apart; 
Thou  hadst  a  voice  whose  sound  was  like  the  seaj 
Pure  as  the  naked  heavens,  majestic,  free  : 
So  didst  thou  travel  on  life's  common  way 
In  cheerful  godliness,  and  yet  thy  heart 
The  lowliest  duties  on  herself  did  lay." 


ENGLISH    IMAGINATION    IN    DRYDEN'S    TIME.     237 


The  literary  period  of  Dryden  and  those  amidst  whom 
he  was  pre-eminent  was  in  no  respect,  that  I  can  perceive, 
affected  by  the  best  poetry  which  had  gone  before.  The 
current  of  poetry  the  public  taste  was  floating  on  was 
like  the  slow — the  regulated  and  artificial — stream  of  a 
canal;  while  at  the  same  time,  close  beside  it,  the  mighty 
river  of  Milton's  genius  was  flowing  at  his  own  sweet  will, 
copiously,  impetuously,  majestically,  in  its  native  chan- 
nel and  with  its  native  tides.  What  were  the  poetic 
authorities  where  Milton's  influence  was  unavailing  I  shall 
endeavour  to  ascertain  in  this  and  the  next  lecture. 

Before  doing  so,  it  will  be  necessary  to  discover  the 
agencies  which  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  century  had 
begun  to  give  a  direction  to  English  poetry.  The  poetry 
which  we  have  been  contemplating  in  the  previous 
lectures  was  eminently  and  gloriously  imaginative.  In  all 
that  proceeded  from  Spenser  and  Shakspeare  and  Milton, 
it  was  obvious  that  the  controlling  faculty  was  imagina- 
tion ;  it  was  pure  and  high  poetry, — the  product  of  the 
great  characteristic  of  poetic  genius, — that  combination 
of  fancy,  judgment,  meditation,  and  invention,  which  to- 
gether constitute  imagination  in  its  most  comprehensive 
form,  and  whose  prime  glory  is  its  perpetual  truth  to 
nature.  The  great  change  that  came  over  English  poetry 
was  the  departure  from  nature,  and  the  decline  of  imagi- 
native energy. 

The  English  nation,  under  the  stirring  influences  of 
the  Reformation,  had  become  a  deeply-thinking,  reflec- 
tive, and  learned  people.  A  philosophical  condition  of 
opinion  prevailed ;  and,  while  those  who  combined  witK 
it  an  imaginative  cast  of  mind  would  find  all  their  hearts 
could  desire  on  the  pages  of  the  great  poets, — food  for 


LECTURE    SEVENTH. 


meditation  and  food  for  imagination  in  the  storehouses 
of  Spenser  and  Shakspeare, — there  was  another  order  of 
minds,  to  whom  was  supplied  a  poetry  more  congenial,  for 
it  showed  an  increased  activity  of  the  reasoning  facul- 
ties and  a  diminished  vigour  of  imagination.  From  this 
condition  of  public  taste  arose  two  schools  of  poetry. 
The  first  and  best  of  these  the  philosophical  poetry, 
as  it  has  been  styled,  because  it  brought  within  the  ter- 
ritory of  poetry  subjects  usually  left  to  the  analytical  pro- 
cesses of  the  understanding;  such,  for  instance,  as  the 
immortality  of  the  soul  and  its  various  functions.  The 
second  of  these  schools  is  that  which  has  obtained  in- 
appropriately the  title  of  the  metaphysical  poetry  ; — inap- 
propriately, because  no  one  has  yet  discovered  why  it 
should  be  so  called,  and  also  because  the  epithet  would 
aptly  belong  to  the  other  species  of  poetry,  called,  some- 
what ambiguously,  the  philosophical.  In  both  of  these, 
those  qualities  which  are  deemed  the  essential  elements 
of  poetical  composition  are  either  placed  on  a  level  with  or 
made  subordinate  to  other  qualities  of  the  mind.  I  have 
no  wish  to  adopt  so  strict  a  creed  as  wholly  to  exclude 
argumentative  poetry;  but  it  is  proper  to  appreciate  that 
it  can  never  be  elevated  to  the  high  order  of  inspiration, 
because  it  is  addressed  not  to  the  imagination,  or  even  to 
the  fancy  or  the  heart,  but  to  the  understanding. 

There  are  two  poets  of  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth 
century  whom  I  cannot  find  in  m'y  heart  to  pass  by  in 
absolute  silence, — contemporaries  of  Spenser  and  Shak- 
gpeare, — Daniel  and  Drayton.  The  poems  of  the  former 
are  distinguished  both  for  a  purity  'and  naturalness  of 
diction  and  a  tenderness  of  feeling  and  elevated  thought 
which  give  them  a  high  value.  In  the  whole  catalogue 


SAMUEL    DAXIEL.  239 


of  English  poets  there  is  no  one  more  right-minded,  more 
right-hearted,  than  Samuel  Daniel.  The  moral  tone  of 
his  genius  may  be  illustrated  in  such  a  passage  as  this 
description  of  what  he  calls  "  the  concord  of  a  well-tuned 
mind:"— 

"  He  that  of  such  a  height  hath  built  his  mind, 
And  reared  the  dwelling  of  his  thoughts  so  strong, 
As  neither  fear  nor  hope  can  shake  the  frame 
Of  his  resolvld  powers,  nor  all  the  wind 
Of  vanity  or  malice  piece  to  wrong 
His  settled  peace,  or  to  disturb  the  same, — 
AVhat  a  fair  seat  hath  he,  from  whence  he  may 
The  boundless  wastes  and  wilds  of  man  survey ! 

"And  with  how  free  an  eye  doth  he  look  down 

Upon  these  lower  regions  of  turmoil ! 

AVhere  all  the  storms  of  passion  mainly  beat 

On  flesh  and  blood;  where  honour,  power,  renown, 

Are  only  gay  afflictions,  golden  toil ; 

AVhere  greatness  stands  upon  as  feeble  feet 

As  frailty  doth,  and  only  great  doth  seem 

To  little  minds  who  do  it  so  esteem. 

*  *  *  * 

"And  while  distraught  ambition  compasses 

And  is  encompassed, — whilst  as  craft  deceives 

And  is  deceived, — whilst  man  doth  ransuchen*  man, 

And  builds  on  blood,  and  rises  by  distress, 

And  the  inheritance  of  desolation  leaves 

To  great-expecting  hopes, — he  looks  thereon, 

As  from  the  shore  of  peace,  with  unwet  eye, 

And  bears  no  venture  in  impiety  ; 

-"Knowing  the  heart  of  man  is  set  to  be 
The  centre  of  this  world,  about  the  which 
These  revolutions  of  disturbances 
Still  roll ;  where  all  the  aspects  of  misery 

*  Ransack. 


240  LECTURE    SEVENTH. 


Predominate ;  whose  strong  effects  are  such 
As  he  must  bear,  being  powerless  to  redress; 
And  that  unless  above  himself  he  can 
Erect  himself, — how  poor  a  thing  is  man !" 

I  can  stop  to  notice  only  one  other  passage,  having 
a  double  interest,  as  expressing  his  thoughtful  pride 
in  the  power  of  the  English  language,  and  as  prophetic 
of  the  spread  of  that  language  over  the  vast  regions 
of  America : — 

"  Should  we,  careless,  come  behind  the  rest 
In  power  of  words,  that  go  before  in  worth, 
When  as  our  accents,  equal  to  the  best, 
Is  able  greater  wonders  to  bring  forth  ? 
When  all  that  ever  hotter  spirits  expressed 
Comes  bettered  by  the  patience  of  the  North? 
And  who  (in  time)  knows  whither  we  may  vent 
The  treasure  of  our  tongue  ? — to  what  strange  shores 
This  gain  of  our  best  glory  shall  be  sent, 
T'enrich  unknowing  nations  with  our  stores? — 
What  worlds  in  the  yet  unformed  Occident 
May  come  refined  with  the  accents  that  are  ours  ?" 

The  other  poet  I  have  alluded  to — Michael  Drayton — 
deserves  a  better  fame  than  the  world  has  given  him, 
were  it  to  rest  only  on  his  most  elaborate  work, — the 
"  Polyolbion,"  — the  most  extraordinary  production,  in 
some  respects,  that  ever  issued  from  poetic  imagination. 
It  was  the  first,  and  probably  will  be  the  last,  topographi- 
cal poem  on  the  records  of  poetry  He  is  the  panegyrist  of 
his  native  country,  the  main  subject  of  his  poem  being  the 
rivers  of  England ;  and,  as  Charles  Lamb  has  said  of  him, 
"  he  has  gone  over  the  soil  with  the  fidelity  of  a  herald 
and  the  painful  love  of  a  son ;  he  has  not  left  a  rivulet, 
so  narrow  that  it  may  be  stepped  over,  without  honour- 


MICHAEL    DKAYTON. 


able  mention,  and  has  animated  hills  and  streams  with 
life  and  passion  above  the  dreams  of  old  mythology." 
The  poem,  •which  is  one  of  the  longest  in  the  language,  is 
composed  in  the  rarely-used  verse  of  twelve  syllables 
known  by  the  name  of  "Alexandrine,"  and,  while  com- 
bining a  most  elaborate  accumulation  of  historic,  legen- 
dary, and  fabulous  tradition,  is  distinguished  for  a  higher 
strain  of  imagination  than  might  at  first  be  expected 
from  a  theme  so  unpromising  for  the  purposes  of  poetry 
as  topography.  But  it  should  be  remembered  that  with 
the  rivers  of  a  country  a  thousand  associations — actual 
and  mythical — are  forever  flowing.  At  the  mere  mention 
of  such  names  as  the  Jordan,  the  Nile,  the  Tiber,  the 
Rhine,  the  Thames,  the  Tweed,  or  the  mournful  Yarrow, 
or  the  history-honoured,  blood-stained  waters  of  our  own 
land,  how  do  thoughts  and  feelings  rise  up  in  our  minds 
as  unceasing  as  their  springs  !  Among  these  early  poets 
there  are  few  to  whose  neglected  memory  the  student 
will  feel,  on  acquaintance,  more  disposed  to  render  affec- 
tionate and  dutiful  homage  than  Michael  Drayton ;'  and  let 
us  part  with  him,  holding  in  our  recollections  one  of  his 
smaller  pieces,  which  would  bear  comparison  with  the 
best  of  that  species  of  poetry  in  which  there  has  been  so 
much  of  worthless  effusion; — I  mean  amatory  poetry; — 
for,  from  Anacreon  down  to  Moore,  I  know  of  no  lines  on 
the  old  subject  of  lovers'  quarrels,  distinguished  for 
eqtial  tenderness  of  sentiment  and  richness  of  fancy. 
Especially  may  be  observed  the  exquisite  gracefulness  in 
the  transition  from  the  familiar  tone  in  the  first  part  of 
the  sonnet  to  the  deeper  feeling  and  the  higher  strain 
of  imagination  at  the  cjose  : — • 

VOL.  I.  16 


242  LECTURE    SEVENTH. 


"  Since  there's  no  help,  come,  let  us  kiss  and  part. 

Nay,  I  have  done :  you  get  no  more  of  me; 
And  I  am  glad,  yea,  glad  with  all  my  heart, 

That  thus  so  cleanly  I  myself  can  free  ! 
Shake  hands  forever;  cancel  all  our  vows  ; 

And,  when  we  meet  at  any  time  again, 
Be  it  not  seen  in  either  of  our  brows 

That  we  one  jot  of  former  love  retain. 
Now  at  the  last  gasp  of  Love's  latest  breath. 

When,  his  pulse  failing,  Passion  speechless  lie*. 
When  Faith  is  kneeling  by  his  bed  of  death 

And  Innocence  is  closing  up  his  eyet, 
2fow,  if  thou  \couldst,  when  all  hare  given  him  over, 
Front  death  to  life  thou  might' st  him  yet  recover." 

While  Daniel  and  Drayton  preserved  in  their  poetry — 
if  not  in  high  elevation,  at  least  in  just  proportions — the 
various  elements  of  thought  and  feeling  and  fancy,  the 
early  and  middle  parts  of  the  seventeenth  century  pro- 
duced two  other  poets  whose  influence  was  wider  and 
more  abiding.  It  is  usual  to  regard  Donne,  the  Dean 
of  St.  Paul's,  as  the  first,  and  Cowley  as  the  chief,  of  the 
metaphysical  poets,  as  they  have  been  styled.  The  irre- 
deemable sin  of  this  school  of  poetry  was  its  sacrifice  of 
nature,  and,  consequently,  of  poetic  truth.  The  rule  of 
its  inspiration  was  abandonment  of  simplicity.  Natural 
imagery,  natural  feeling,  and  passion, — natural  expression, 
— all  were  insufficient  to  reach  the  standard-mark  of  its 
extravagance.  It  was  deemed  the  perfection  of  poetry 
so  to  entangle  every  poetic  image  or  impulse  in  a  maze 
of  scholastic  allusions,  in  forced  and  arbitrary  turns  of 
thought,  paradoxes,  antitheses,  quaintnesses,  subtleties, 
that  the  reader's  chief  pleasure  must  have  been  the  exer- 
cise of  a  correspondent  and  inappropriate  ingenuity  in 
discovering  the  path  of  the  labyrinth.  It  could  have 


THE    POETRY    OF    DONNE    AND    COWLEY.  243 


been  no  more  than  the  negative  satisfaction  in  unravelling 
a  riddle.  Still,  to  readers  of  acutely-intellectual  habits  of 
mind,  the  exercise  of  reading  this  poetry,  we  can  readily 
understand,  brought  a  certain  kind  and  a  considerable 
amount  of  mental  satisfaction,  which  became  a  substitute 
for  the  imaginative  delight  imparted  by  true  poetry,  and 
perhaps  mistaken  for  it.  The  feeling  was  much  more 
akin  to  a  mathematician's  pleasure  in  some  achievement 
in  his  severe  abstractions,  or  to  that  of  an  adroit  chess- 
player. Let  me  not  for  one  moment  be  understood  as 
condemning  this  poetry  because  it  demands  thought; 
for,  if  there  be  any  one  principle  I  am  more  anxious  to 
inculcate  than  another  in  this  course  of  lectures,  it  is  that 
all  the  highest  and  purest  poetry  can  be  appreciated  only 
by  studious  and  imaginative  thoughtfulness.  It  is  this 
error  which  greatly  is  the  cause  of  false  and  low  tastes  in 
poetry.  I  have  not  treated,  in  the  previous  lectures,  of 
any  one  poet  whose  genius  can  be  approached  otherwise 
than  with  due  meditation.  But  the  poetry  I  am  now 
speaking  of  demands  not  so  much  thought  as  shrewdness, 
acuteness,  ingenuity,  intellectual  dexterity;  or  perhaps 
it  would  describe  'it  more  justly,  as  well  as  more  favour- 
ably, to  say  that  it  demands  thought  and  nothing  but 
thought, — no  imagination,  no  passion,  which  are  the  life 
of  real  poetry.  I  might,  for  instance,  select  many  pieces 
of  this  poetry,  and  before  I  had  reached  a  dozen  lines  I 
should  have  perplexed  and  bewildered  both  you  and  my- 
self. It  may  safely  be  said  to  be  a  poetry  which  makes 
it  necessary  for  the  reader  to  Aave,  to  use  the  familiar 
phrase,  his  wits  about  him.  A  short  piece  of  Donne's, 
entitled  "A  Lecture,"  is  as  favourable  a  specimen  as  I  can 
cite  to  characterize  both  his  merits  and  his  faults.  This 


244  LECTURE    SEVENTH. 


species  of  poetry  prevailed  for  so  considerable  a  time,  and 
had  such  influence,  that,  in  a  course  on  English  poetry,  it 
cannot  well  be  passed  by.  It  is,  however,  only  a  very 
small  amount  of  it  I  shall  ask  your  endurance  of : — 

"  Stand  still,  and  I  will  read  to  thee 
A  lecture,  love,  in  Love's  philosophy. 
These  three  hours  that  we  have  spent 
Walking  here,  two  shadows  went 
Along  with  us,  which  we  ourselves  produced. 
But,  now  the  sun  is  just  ahove  our  head, 
We  do  those  shadows  tread, 
And  to  brave  clearness  all  things  are  reduced. 
So,  whilst  our  infant  loves  did  grow, 
Disguises  did,  and  shadows,  flow 
From  us,  and  from  our  cares :  now,  'tis  not  so 
That  love  hath  not  attained  the  highest  degree 
Which  is  still  diligent  lest  others  see; 
Except  our  loves  at  this  noon  stay, 
We  shall  new  shadows  make  the  other  way. 
The  morning  shadows  wear  away ; 
But  these  grow  larger  all  the  day.'' 

On  this  quaint  piece  of  poetry  I  have  no  other  comment 
to  make  than  to  say  that  a  courtship  must  have  been  an 
exceedingly  formidable  business  when  the  wooing  was 
done  in  this  style.  It  was  the  remark  of  one  of  the  phi- 
losophical poets  of  the  seventeenth  century,  in  allusion 
to  the  copiousness  of  his  fancy,  that  he  was  forced  to  cut 
his  way  through  a  crowd  of  thoughts  as  through  a  wood. 
The  remark  applies  to  all  of  them.  That  school  of  poetry 
laboured  under  a  very  unusual  difficulty, — an  excess  of 
intellectual  activity;  for  the  more  frequent  peril  of  poetry 
is  that  its  metrical  music  is  too  often  made  to  conceal  an 
emptiness  of  thought ;  and  so  it  is  that  rhyme  is  some- 
times taken  as  the  antithesis  of  reason.  These  poets 


CHARACTER    OF    COWLEY.  245 


under  consideration  arrayed  not  only  the  thoughts  which 
their  strong  intellect  and  large  scholarship  naturally  sug- 
gested, but  ingenuity  was  tortured  to  gather  from  all 
quarters  all  possible  devices.  Their  poems  abound  with 
conceits  wonderfully  far-fetched,  often  worth  little  after  all. 
In  short,  the  poetry  was  fantastic  instead  of  imaginative. 
It  is  instructive,  however,  sometimes  to  find  nature 
breaking  through  the  throng  of  these  inventions ;  some 
strong  passion  bursting  the  bonds  of  a  false  taste, — false 
both  in  conception  and  expression, — and  finding  utterance 
in  hearty  simplicity  of  speech. 

Of  the  ability  of  so  fantastic  a  poet  as  Donne  to  express 
a. simple  thought  in  simple  words,  I  cannot  give  better 
proof  than  the  two  admirable  lines  quoted  in  a  former 
lecture,  of  his  epitaph  on  Shakspeare  : — 

"  Under  this  curled  marble  of  thine  own, 
Sleep,  rare  tragedian,  Shakspeare,  sleep  alone." 

The  chief  representative  of  this  poetry  was  Cowley, — a 
man,  however,  of  poetic  genius,  with  a  poet's  mind  and  a 
poet's  sensibility,  sadly  as  he  was  shackled  by  the  influence 
of  a  false,  and  of  course  temporary,  fashion.  He  was 
the  contemporary  of  Milton,  and  far  more  prosperous  in  a 
speedy  popularity, — the  poet  of  the  Royalists,  as  Milton 
was  of  the  Republicans.  That  quick  success  was  gained  at 
the  cost  of  an  enduring  and  higher  fame ;  and  it  is  im- 
possible to  read  the  poetry  of  Cowley  without  mourning 
over  the  sacrifice.  No  cultivation,  it  is  true,  could  have 
made  him  one  of  the  greatest  poets ;  but  it  might  have 
made  him  much  greater  than  he  was.  From  childhood 
he  had  a  poet's  heart.  In  one  of  his  admirable  prose  essays, 
— admirable  for  a  native  simplicity  greatly  contrasted 


246  LECTURE    SEVENTH. 


with  the  overwrought  fancy  of  his  verse, — he  says,  "I 
remember,  when  I  began  to  read  and  to  take  some  pleasure 
in  it,  there  was  wont  to  lie  in  my  mother's  parlour,  (I 
know  not  by  what  accident ;  for  she  herself  never  in  her 
life  read  any  book  but  of  devotion ;) — but  there  was  wont 
to  lie  Spenser's  works.  This  I  happened  to  fall  upon, 
and  was  infinitely  delighted  with  the  stories  of  the 
knights  and  giants  and  monsters  and  brave  houses  which 
I  found  everywhere  there,  (though  my  understanding 
had  little  to  do  with  all  this,)  and,  by  degrees,  with  the 
tinkling  of  the  rhyme  and  dance  of  the  numbers;  so 
that,  I  think,  I  had  read  him  all  over  before  I  was 
twelve  years  old,  and  was  thus  made  a  poet  in  childhood." 
It  would  have  been  well  for  Cowley  if  his  understanding 
had  not  had  quite  so  much  to  do  with  his  own  poetry, 
and  his  imagination  and  native  feeling  more.  He  was 
involved  in  the  turmoil  of  the  civil  war,  not  to  come  out 
of  it,  like  his  mighty  contemporary,  Milton,  with  powers 
invigorated  by  the  strife  and  ready  to  gather  them  for  the 
composition  of  an  immortal  poem,  but  rather  to  lament 
over  the  loss  of  congenial  pursuits,  and  self-sacrifice  in  a 
thankless  cause.  His  loyalty  was  rewarded  by  a  heartless 
monarch's  ingratitude ;  and  one  of  the  best  of  Cowley's 
poems  is  that  entitled  "  The  Complaint,"  composed 
when  shades  were  gathering  over  the  evening  of  his 
days  :— 

"  In  a  deep  vision's  intellectual  scene, 
Beneath  a  bower  for  sorrows  made, — 

The  uncomfortable  shade 

Of  the  black  yew's  unlucky  green 
Mixed  with  the  mourning  willow's  careful  gray 
Where  reverend  Cam  cuts  out  his  famous  way, 

The  melancholy  Cowley  lay; 


THE    COMPLAINT.  247 


And  lo !  a  Muse  appeared  to  's  closed  sight, 
(The  Muses  oft  in  lands  of  vision  play,) 
Bodied,  arrayed,  and  seen  by  an  internal  light. 
A  golden  harp  with  silver  strings  she  bore; 
A  wondrous  hieroglyphic  robe  she  wore, 
In  which  all  colours  and  all  figures  were 
That  nature  or  that  fancy  can  create, 
That  art  can  never  imitate. 

•  ••.*• 

She  touched  him  with  her  harp  and  raised  him  from  the  ground. 
The  shaken  strings  melodiously  resound. 

'Art  thou  returned  at  last/  said  she, 

'  To  this  forsaken  place  and  me  ? 
Thou  prodigal,  who  didst  so  loosely  waste 
Of  all  thy  youthful  years  the  good  estate ; 
Art  thou  returned  here,  to  repent  too  late 
And  gather  husks  of  learning  up  at  last, 
Now  the  rich  harvest-time  of  life  is  past, 

And  winter  marches  on  so  fast  ? 

*  *  *  * 

When  I  resolved  to  exalt  thy  anointed  name 

Among  the  spiritual  lords  of  peaceful  fame, 

Thou  changeling !  thou,  bewitched  with  noise  and  show, 

Wouldst  into  courts  and  cities  from  me  go ; 

Wouldst  see  the  world  abroad,  and  have  a  share 

In  all  the  follies  and  the  tumults  there. 

Thou  wouldst,  forsooth,  be  something  in  a  state ; 

And  business  thou  wouldst  find  and  wouldst  create. 

'  Go,  renegado,  cast  up  thy  account ; 

And  see  to  what  amount 

Thy  foolish  gains  by  quitting  me : — 
The  sale  of  knowledge,  fame,  and  liberty, 
The  fruits  of  thy  unlearned  apostasy. 
Thou  thought's!,  if  once  the  public  storm  were  past, 
All  thy  remaining  life  should  sunshine  be : 
Behold  !  the  public  storm  is  spent  at  last  j 
The  sovereign's  tossed  at  sea  no  more; 
And  thou,  with  all  the  noble  company, 

Art  got  at  last  to  shore. 


24S  L  E  C  T  U  R  E    S  E  V  E  N  T  n. 


But,  whilst  thy  fellow-voyagers  I  see 
All  marched  up  to  possess  the  promised  land, 
Thou,  still  alone,  alas!  dost  gaping  stand 
Upon  the  naked  beach,  upon  the  barren  sand.' 

"  Thug  spake  the  Muse,  and  spake  it  with  a  smile 
That  seemed  at  once  to  pity  and  revile. 
And  to  her  thus,  raising  his  thoughtful  head, 

The  melancholy  Cowley  said, 

'Ah,  wanton  foe !  dost  thou  upbraid 

The  ills  which  thou  thyself  hast  made  ? 
When  in  the  cradle  innocent  I  lay, 
Thou,  wicked  spirit,  stolest  me  away, 

And  my  abused  soul  didst  bear 
Into  thy  new-found  worlds,  I  know  not  where, — 

Thy  golden  Indies  in  the  air. 

And  ever  since  I  strive  in  vain 

My  ravished  freedom  to  regain; 
Still  I  rebel,  still  thou' dost  reign ; 
Lo  !  still  in  verse  against  thee  I  complain. 

There  is  a  sort  of  stubborn  weeds 
Which,  if  the  earth  but  once,  it  ever,  breeds ; 

No  wholesome  herb  can  near  them  thrive, 

No  useful  plant  can  keep  alive. 
The  foolish  sports  I  did  on  thee  bestow 
Make  all  my  art  and  labour  fruitless  now ; 
Where  once  such  fairies  dance,  no  grass  doth  ever  grow." 

In  estimating  the  poetry  of  this  period,  it  is  very 
common  to  condemn  it  for  the  conceits  it  abounds  with. 
This  is  a  censure  in  which  it  is  necessary  to  exercise 
some  caution.  It  is  true  that  simplicity  of  thought  is  a 
precious  element  of  poetry,  as  distinguished  from  com- 
plications and  involutions  and  entanglements  of  thought. 
The  fault  in  many  of  these  poets  was,  that,  not  content 
with  a  thought  or  feeling  in  its  first  simple  form,  they 
wandered  far  away  from  it  in  search  of  all  fantastic  allu* 


POLITICAL    CONCEITS    OF    THE    PERIOD.  249 


sions;  and  when  they  bring  you  back  to  the  original 
thought  or  feeling  its  life  is  gone; — it  is  dead  and  spirit- 
less. These  are  what  are  called  cold  conceits.  But  it 
has  been  well  said  that  a  conceit  is  not  necessarily  cold. 
The  mind,  in  certain  states  of  passion,  finds  comfort  in 
playing  with  occult  or  casual  resemblances,  and  dallies 
with  the  echo  of  a  sound.  What  is  not  a  conceit  to  those 
who  read  it  in  a  temper  different  from  that  in  which  the 
writer  composed  it  ?  The  most  pathetic  parts  of  poetry  to 
cold  tempers  seem  and  are  nonsense,  as  divinity  was  to  the 
Greeks  foolishness.  When  Richard  the  Second,  meditating 
on  his  own  utter  annihilation  as  to  royalty,  cries  out, — 

Oh  that  I  were  a  mockery-king  of  snow, 
Standing  before  the  sun  of  Bolingbroke, 
To  melt  myself  away  in  water-drops !" — 

If  we  have  been  going  on  pace  for  pace  with  the  pas- 
sion before,  this  sudden  conversion  of  a  strong-felt  meta- 
phor into  something  to  be  actually  realized  in  nature,  like 
that  of  Jeremiah, — "  Oh  that  my  head  were  waters,  and 
mine  eyes  a  fountain  of  tears  !" — is  strictly  and  strikingly 
natural.  But  come  unprepared  upon  it,  and  it  is  a  con- 
ceit; and  so  is  a  ''head"  turned  into  "waters." 

It  is  necessary  to  understand  that  real  feeling  may  be 
compatible  with  a  great  deal  of  eccentricity  of  thought 
and  quaintness  of  imagery  in  poetry,  in  order  to  appre- 
ciate those  singular  strains  which,  fancy-wrought  as  they 
are,  were  uttered  from  the  very  bottom  of  the  heart  of  that 
sweet  singer,  George  Herbert.  It  is  poetry  with  many 
of  the  characteristics  of  the  serious  poetry  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  but  with  feeling,  fancy,  and  thought 
blended  together  in  proportions  unlike  the  combination 
on  any  other  pages.  It  is  essentially  devotional, — devotion, 


250  LECTURE     SEVENTH. 


with  Fancy  serving  it  with  the  speed  and  wildness  of  a 
fairy's  movements,  taking  any  shape  that  poetic  ingenuity 
could  give,  with  the  hope,  that 

"A  verse  may  catch  a  wandering  soul  that  flies 
Profounder  tracts,  and,  by  a  blest  surprise, 
Convert  delight  into  a  sacrifice." 

What,  in  its  way,  can  be  more  pleasing  than  the  sweet 
moralizing  in  what  are  perhaps  his  best-known  lines, — 
on  virtue  ? — 

"  Sweet  day,  so  cool,  so  calm,  so  bright, 

The  bridal  of  the  earth  and  sky, 
The  dew  shall  weep  thy  fall  to-night; 
For  thou  must  die. 

"  Sweet  rose,  whoso  hue,  angry  and  brave, 

Bids  the  rash  gazer  wipe  his  eye, 
Thy  root  is  ever  in  its  grave ; 
And  thou  must  die. 

"  Sweet  spring,  full  of  sweet  days  and  roses, — 

A  box  where  sweets  compacted  lie, — 
My  music  show  ye  have  your  closes  j 
And  all  must  die. 

"  Only  a  sweet  and  virtuous  soul, 

Like  seasoned  timber,  never  gives, 
But,  though  the  whole  world  turn  to  coal, 
Then  chiefly  lives." 

His  lines  on  "Life"  have  somewhat  a  more  solemn 
strain,  but  so  gentle  a  warning  to  mortality  that  even  the 
joung,  light  heart  of  beauty,  happy  with  its  innocent 
tribute  of  flowers,  may  not  unwillingly  receive  a  salutary 
pensiveness ;— 


HERBERT'S    "LIFE"    AND    "PEACE."  251 


"I  made  a  posy  while  the  day  ran  by: 
Here  will  I  smell  my  remnant  out,  and  tie 

My  life  within  this  band. 
But  Time  did  beckon  to  the  flowers,  and  they 
By  noon  most  cunningly  did  steal  away, 

And  withered  in  my  hand. 

''My  hand  was  next  to  them,  and  then  my  heart; 
I  took,  without  more  thinking,  in  good  part 

Time's  gentle  admonition, 
Who  did  so  sweetly  death's  sad  taste  convey, 
Making  my  mind  to  smell  my  fatal  day, 

Yet  sugaring  the  suspicion. 

'Farewell,  dear  flowers!  sweetly  your  time  ye  spent! 
Fit,  while  ye  lived,  for  smell  or  ornament, 

And,  after  death,  for  cures ; 
I  follow  straight,  without  complaints  or  grief, 
Since,  if  my  scent  be  good,  I  care  not  if 

It  be  as  short  as  yours !" 

As  a  specimen  of  Herbert's  more  fantastic  mood  in 
dealing  with  his  holy  themes,  I  may  cite  the  little  poem 
entitled  "Peace:"— 

"Sweet  Peace,  where  dost  thou  dwell?     I  humbly  crave 

Let  mo  once  know. 
I  sought  thee  in  a  secret  cave, 

And  asked  if  Peace  were  there. 
A  hollow  wind  did  seem  to  answer,  'No ; 
Go  seek  elsewhere 

"I  did;  and,  going,  did  a  rainbow  note: 

'Surely,'  thought  I, 
'  This  is  the  lace  of  Peace's  coat : 
I  will  search  out  the  matter.' 
But,  while  I  looked,  the  clouds  immediately 
Did  break  and  scatter. 


252  LECTURE    SEVENTH. 


"  Then  went  I  to  a  garden,  and  did  spy 

A  gallant  flower, — 
The  crown  imperial.     'Sure,'  said  I, 
'Peace  at  the  root  must  dwell.' 
But,  when  I  digged,  I  saw  a  worm  devour 
What  showed  so  well. 

"  At  length  I  met  a  reverend,  good  old  man, 

Whom,  when  for  Peace 
I  did  demand,  he  thus  began  : — 

'  There  was  a  prince  of  old 
At  Salem  dwelt,  who  lived  with  good  increase 
Of  flock  and  fold. 

" '  He  sweetly  lived ;  yet  sweetness  did  not  save 

His  life  from  foes. 
But,  after  death,  out  of  his  grave 

There  sprang  twelve  stalks  of  wheat, 
Which,  many  wondering  at,  got  some  of  those 
To  plant  and  set. 

"'It  prospered  strangely,  and  did  soon  disperse 

Through  all  the  earth; 
For  they  that  taste  it  do  rehearse 

That  virtue  lies  therein, — 
A  secret  virtue,  bringing  peace  and  mirth 
By  flight  of  sin. 

"*Take  of  this  grain  which  in  my  garden  grows, 

And  grow  for  you. 
Make  bread  of  it ;  and  that  repose 
And  peace,  which  everywhere 
With  so  much  earnestness  you  do  pursue, 
Is  only  there.' " 

That  Herbert's  poetry  has  many  of  the  characteristics 
of  the  metaphysical  poetry  of  Donne  and  Cowley  cannot 
be  denied,  but  redeemed  by  the  fervent  spirit  of  devotion 


IIEKBERT'?    SKLF-CIUT1CISM. 


breathing  in  every  line.  It  is  not  the  expression  of  a 
well-disciplined  imagination,  but  is  rather  instinct  with 
fancy.  With  all  its  peculiarities, — to  use  a  kinder  term 
than  faults, — I  had  rather  take  it  as  it  is,  as  one  of  the 
many  tones  of  English  poetry,  than  that  its  distinctive 
features  should  have  been  done  away  by  stricter  poetic 
discipline.  It  is  curious  to  observe  that  Herbert  has 
himself  alluded  to  his  participation  in  the  over-wrought 
fashion  of  poetry,  in  a  few  lines  which  indicate  its 
faults  better,  I  think,  than  criticism  has  ever  done,  and 
close,  too.  with  a  statement  of  the  best  and  universal 
theory  of  poetic  art, — loyalty  to  nature  in  her  own  sim- 
plicity : — 

"When  first  my  lines  of  heavenly  joys  made  mention, 
Such  was  their  lustre, — they  did  so  excel, — 
That  I  sought  out  quaint  words  and  trim  invention. 
My  thoughts  began  to  burnish,  sprout,  and  swell, 
Curling  with  metaphors  a  plain  intention, 
Decking  the  sense  as  if  it  were  to  sell. 

"  Thousands  of  notions  in  my  brain  did  ran, 
Offering  their  service  if  I  were  not  sped. 
I  often  blotted  what  I  had  begun  : 
This  was  not  quick  enough,  and  that  was  dead. 
Nothing  could  seem  too  rich  to  clothe  the  sun, 
Much  less  those  joys  which  trample  on  his  head. 

"As  flames  do  work  and  wind,  when  they  ascend, 
So  did  I  weave  myself  into  the  sense; 
But,  while  I  bustled,  I  might  hear  a  friend 
Whisper,  'How  wide  is  all  this  long  pretence? 
There  is  in  love  a  sweetness  ready  penned; 
Copy  out  only  that,  and  save  expense.'" 

Herbert  is  one  of  the  many  minor  poets  to  whom  we 
are  indebted  for  the  sacred  poetry  of  the  seventeenth 


254  LECTURE    SEVENTH. 


century,  which  is  so  voluminous  that  it  has  been  truly 
said  a  history  of  it  might  he  regarded  as  an  elaborate 
preface  to  the  "Paradise  Lost." 

Passing  from  the  serious  to  the  light  poetry  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  we  meet  with  strains  as  light  in 
their  movement  as  fancy  ever  danced  to.  Even  in  the 
songs,  however,  of  that  period  there  is  a  vein  of  reflec- 
tion showing  thoughtfulness  in  the  midst  of  sportiveness, 
as  in  the  first  stanzas  of  that  light  lyric  of  Herrick's  : — 

"  Gather  the  rose-buds  while  ye  may; 

Old  Time  is  still  a-flying ; 
And  this  same  flower  that  smiles  to-day 
To-morrow  may  be  dying. 

"  The  glorious  lamp  of  heaven,  the  sun, 

The  higher  he's  a-getting 
The  sooner  will  his  race  be  run 
And  nearer  he's  to  setting." 

It  was  to  this  poet,  Robert  Herrick,  that  English  verse 
owes  some  of  its  most  graceful  and  musical  metrical 
arrangements.  The  music  of  the  sweetest  of  Moore's 
melodies  does  not,  it  sounds  to  me,  surpass  the  modulation 
of  the  verses  entitled  "  The  Night  Piece  :" — 

"  Her  eyes  the  glowworm  lend  thee ; 
The  shooting  stars  attend  thee ; 

And  the  elves  also, 

Whose  little  eyes  glow 
Like  the  sparks  of  fires,  befriend  thee. 

"No  will-of-the-wisp  mislight  thee; 
Nor  snake  or  slow-worm  bite  thee; 
But  on  thy  way 
Not  making  a  stay, 
Since  ghost  there  is  none  to  affright  thee. 


ROBERT    HERRICK.  255 


"  Let  not  the  dark  thee  cumber ; 
What  tho'  the  moon  doth  slumber? 
The  stars  of  the  night 
Will  lend  thee  their  light, 
Like  tapers  clear  without  number. 

"  Then,  Julia,  let  me  woo  thee, 
Thus,  thus  to  come  unto  me ; 
And,  when  I  shall  meet 
Thy  silvery  feet, 
My  soul  I'll  pour  into  thee." 

It  seems  to  have  been  Herrick's  pleasure  to  try  the 
sound  of  a  great  variety  of  rhythms,  to  find  what 
music  the  language  was  capable  of.  The  musical  close 
of  the  following  lines  is  the  result  of  one  of  these 
experiments : — 

"Am  I  despised  because  you  say, 
And  I  dare  swear,  that  I  am  grey  ? 
Know,  lady,  you  have  but  your  day; 
And  time  shall  come  when  you  shall  wear 
Such  frost  and  snow  upon  your  hair. 
And  when  (tho'  long  it  comes  to  pass) 
You  question  with  your  looking-glass, 
And  in  that  sincere  crystal  seek 
But  find  no  rose-bud  in  your  cheek, 
Nor  any  bed  to  give  the  show 
Where  such  a  rare  carnation  grew, — 
Ah !  then,  too  late,  close  in  your  chamber  keeping, 

It  will  be  told 

That  you  are  old, 
By  those  true  tears  you're  weeping !" 

Of  Herrick's  sacred  poems  the  most  admired  is  his 
"  Litany  to  the  Holy  Spirit/'  of  which  the  best  stanzas 
are  perhaps  these  : — 


2f:G  LECTURE    SEVENTH. 


"  In  the  hour  of  my  distresse, 
When  temptations  me  oppresse, 
And  when  I  my  sins  confesse, 

Sweet  Spirit,  comfort  me ! 
When  I  lie  within  my  bed, 
Sick  in  heart  and  sick  in  head, 
And  with  doubts  discomforted, 

Sweet  Spirit,  comfort  me  ! 

*  *  *  * 
When  the  house  doth  sigh  and  weep, 
And  the  world  is  drowned  in  sleep, 
Yet  mine  eyes  the  watch  do  keep, 

Sweet  Spirit,  comfort  me ! 
When  the  passing  bell  doth  toll, 
And  the  furies,  in  a  shoal, 
Come  to  fright  a  parting  soul, 

Sweet  Spirit,  comfort  me  ! 
When  the  tapers  now  burn  blue 
And  the  comforters  are  few. 
And  that  number  more  than  true, 

Sweet  Spirit,  comfort  me ! 

*  *  *  * 
When  the  judgment  is  revealed, 

And  that  opened  which  was  sealed; 
When  to  Thee  I  have  appealed, 

Sweet  Spirit,  comfort  me  !" 

In  tracing  the  progress  of  English  poetry  and  endea- 
vouring to  preserve  some  general  reference  to  the  course 
of  English  national  history,  though  of  necessity  in  a 
very  loose  way,  I  cannot  pass  by  an  era  so  memorable  as 
the  great  civil  war  in  the  seventeenth  century.  The 
character  of  that  period,  its  men  and  its  events,  is  a 
theme  of  momentous  interest  if  treated  with  reference 
to  political  and  ecclesiastical  considerations.  Its  literary 
interest  is  but  small.  The  times  were  too  troublous  :  the 
elements  of  society  in  wild  commotion, —  the  feverish 


LITERARY    INTEREST    OF    THE    CIVIL    WAR.       257 


anxiety  of  domestic  war,  with  its  protracted  miseries, — all 
were  adverse  to  activity  in  the  cause  of  letters.  There 
was  not  repose  enough  for  the  meditation  which  is  need- 
ful for  all  good  writing.  Now,  I  have  no  wish  to  mingle 
views  of  politics  with  views  of  poetry,  when  they  have 
little,  if  any  thing,  to  do  with  each  other.  But  there  is 
a  prevalent  error  touching  the  literature  of  those  times, 
which  ought  to  be  noticed.  I  mean  the  habit  of  speak- 
ing of  the  Republican  party  in  the  civil  war  as  the 
less  poetical  party.  This  is  one  of  those  prescriptive 
forms  of  speech  which  are  handed  from  one  author 
to  another,  —  so  habitually  repeated  that  its  truth 
is  not  questioned ;  and  I  have  observed  that  it  has 
blinded  the  most  acute  and  accurate  of  the  historians. 
When  you  come  to  reflect  upon  it,  why,  there  is  one 
single  Republican  name  that  will  outweigh  the  royalist 
poets  of  the  whole  century.  You  may  place  in  one 
scale  the  poetry  of  Milton,  and  in  the  other  that  of 
Cowley,  the  best  poet  of  the  other  side,  with  all  the  effu- 
sions of  every  poet  of  kindred  politics, — you  may  pile 
thereon  all  the  antipathies  and  prejudices  of  Dr.  Johnson, 
— and  the  beam  of  the  balance  will  still  scarcely  be  moved 
to  recover  its  equipoise.  But,  while  I  notice  such  an 
opinion  for  the  purpose  of  denying  its  truth,  I  feel,  at 
the  same  time,  that  there  is  something  low  and  unworthy 
in  bringing  poetry  within  the  range  of  political  partisan- 
ship. What  has  it  to  do  with  such  things  ?  And  has  it 
not,  on  the  other  hand,  to  do  with  a  lofty  enthusiasm  in 
all  its  forms  ?  If  ever  there  was  a  strife  in  which  high 
and  pure  principles  and  noble  emotions  were  arrayed  on 
both  sides,  it  was  that  civil  war.  The  general  character 
of  the  struggle  was,  I  believe,  truly  given  in  the  words 

TOL.  I.  17 


258  LECTURE     SEVENTH. 


of  one  of  the  greatest  British  statesmen  and  orators, 
when  Lord  Chatham  said  of  it,  "  There  was  ambition ; 
there  was  sedition ;  there  was  violence :  but  no  man 
shall  persuade  me  it  was  not  the  cause  of  liberty  on 
one  side  and  of  tyranny  on  the  other/'  On  each  side 
there  were  vices :  on  the  one,  fanaticism  and  hypocrisy, 
on  the  other,  profligacy  and  voluptuousness ;  and,  on  both 
sides,  violence  and  tyranny.  But  what  gives  that  contest 
its  glorious  interest  is  that  the  ranks  of  each  great  party 
of  the  nation  contained  noble  spirits,  in  whom  were 
embodied,  on  the  one  side,  the  high-minded  enthusiasm 
of  a  generous  loyalty,  and,  on  the  other,  the  equally 
fervid  enthusiasm  of  the  love  of  freedom, — happy  in  its 
hopes  and  its  short-lived  enjoyment  of  republicanism. 

"  No  sea 
Swells  like  the  bosom  of  a  man  set  free !" 

In  contemplating  that  period,  it  should  be  with  the 
large-hearted  candour  which  can  recognise  and  admire 
the  strength  and  purity  of  these  opposing  principles, 
reverencing  both  the  spotless  integrity  of  a  faithful 
cavalier  like  Derby,  sealing  his  loyalty  with  his  blood; 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  magnanimity  of  those  who 
aspired  to  political  freedom  in  the  spirit  of  moral 
freedom, 

"  The  later  Sydney,  Marvell,  Harrington, 
Young  Vane,  and  others,  who  called  Milton  friend." 

Now,  when  I  come  to  the  study  of  the  poetry  of  that 
generation,  I  seek  to  know  whether  it  may  not  be  found 
in  connection  with  those  strong  and  generous  passions 
which  belonged  to  the  best  representatives  of  the  times. 


EFFECTS    OF    PURITANISM    ON    POETRY.  259 


I  need  not  stop  to  observe  that  the  Puritan  system  and 
discipline  were  adverse — avowedly  so — to  poetic  culture. 
It  was  vanity  to  their  strict  intellect, — a  toy  for  the 
malignants.  Nor  need  I  more  than  state  that,  in  the 
ephemeral  poetry,  (if  the  political  songs  and  satires 
deserved  the  title  of  poetry,)  the  polished  cavaliers  knew 
how  to  play  the  game  better  than  their  stern  opponents, 
the  Roundheads.  I  would  find  some  poetry  more  en- 
during than  those  occasional  things,  and  in  sympathy 
with  the  better  heart  which  animated  the  worthy  portion 
of  each  party.  The  search,  pursued  in  this  spirit,  is  not 
in  vain ;  for  it  enables  me  to  cite,  in  a  few  noble  lines  of 
Marvel  1,  an  admirable  tribute  to  the  serenity  with  which 
the  king  met  his  fate  when  his  undaunted  enemies 
struck  -the  crown  from  his  brow  and  then  deliberately 
doomed  the  discrowned  head  of  Charles  Stuart  to  the 
block, — a  bloody  atonement,  which  should  bring  a  charity 
for  his  errors  and  an  .admiration  for  the  meek  resignation 
of  his  last  moments,  such  as  inspires  these  lines,  the 
composition  of  a  staunch  friend  of  the  people, — the 
friend,  too,  of  Milton, — telling  how  the  royal  actor  was 
brought 

"  The  tragic  scaffold  to  adorn, 
While  round  the  arine'd  bands 

Did  clap  their  bloody  hands. 
He  nothing  common  did,  or  mean, 
Upon  that  memorable  scene, 

But  with  his  keener  eye 

The  axe's  edge  did  try; 
Nor  call'd  the  gods,  with  vulgar  spite, 
To  vindicate  his  helpless  right, 

But  bowed  his  comely  head 

Downe  as  upon  a  bed !" 


260  LECTURE    SEVENTH. 


There  are  two  scarcely-known  poets  of  this  period, 
who,  being  equally  zealous  on  opposite  political  sides, 
and  encountering  similar  misfortunes  in  consequence  of 
party  reverses,  present  excellent  types  of  the  influence 
on  poetic  character  of  their  various  modes  of  thought  and 
feeling.  Richard  Lovelace  was  a  fine  specimen  of  a  gal- 
lant cavalier, — a  soldier  with  a  scholar's  accomplishments. 
He  risked  his  life  and  spent  his  whole  patrimony  in  the 
hapless  cause  of  his  king.  Among  his  poems  are  two 
songs,  perhaps  as  happy  efforts  of  the  kind  as  any  in  the 
language.  I  can  well  credit  the  tradition  of  his  virtue, 
his  modesty,  his  chivalrous  courtesy  and  courage,  when 
I  reflect  on  the  sentiment  at  the  close  of  the  lines  I  am 
about  to  repeat ;  for  there  is  in  it  a  world  of  the  morality 
of  love's  philosophy, — two  or  three  words  of  wisdom 
which  every  lover  should  make  his  maxim.  It  was  com- 
posed when  he  was  going  to  the  wars,  and  reconciles, 
with  equal  truth  and  grace  of  feeling,  the  soldier's  and 
the  lover's  duty: — 

"  Tell  me  not,  sweet,  I  am  unkind, 

That,  from  the  nunnery 
Of  thy  chaste  breast  and  quiet  mind, 
To  war  and  arms  I  fly. 

"  True,  a  new  mistress  now  I  chase, — 

The  first  foe  in  the  field  ; 
And  with  a  stronger  faith  embrace 
A  sword,  a  horse,  a  shield. 

"Yet  this  inconstancy  is  such 

As  you  too  shall  adore  : 
I  could  not  love  thee,  dear,  so  much, 
Loved  I  not  honour  more." 

This  soldier's  services  in  the  cause  of  the  monarchy 


TO    ALTHEA,    FROM    PRISON.  2C1 


cost  him  not  only  his  fortune,  but  his  liberty.  He  was 
cast  by  the  parliamentary  party  into  prison  ;  but  his  un- 
broken spirit  found  utterance  in  his  most  famous  song : — 
"  To  Althea,  from  prison/' — a  strain  perfectly  charac- 
teristic of  the  cavalier-feeling, — a  high-toned  loyalty  and 
gallantry  and  gayety  : — 

"When  Love,  with  unconfined  wings, 

Hovers  within  my  gates, 
And  my  divine  Althea  brings 

To  whisper  at  the  grates, — 
When  I  lie  tangled  in  her  hair 

And  fettered  to  her  eye, — 
The  birds  that  wanton  in  the  air 

Know  no  such  liberty. 

"When  flowing  cups  run  swiftly  round, 

With  no  allaying  Thames, — 
Our  careless  heads  with  roses  bound, 

Our  hearts  with  loyal  flames, — 
When  thirsty  grief  in  wine- we  steep, — 

When  health  and  draughts  go  free, — 
Fishes  that  tipple  in  the  deep 

Know  no  such  liberty. 

"  When,  like  committed  linnets,  I, 

With  shriller  throat,  shall  sing 
The  sweetness,  mercy,  majesty, 

And  glories  of  my  king, — 
When  I  shall  voice  aloud  how  good 

He  is, — how  great  should  be, — 
Enlarged  winds,  that  curl  the  flood, 

Know  no  such  liberty. 

"  Stone  walls  do  not  a  prison  make, 

Nor  iron  bars  a  cage ; 
Minds  innocent  and  quiet  take 
That  for  a  hermitage. 


262  LECTniE    SEVEN  TIT. 


If  I  have  freedom  in  my  love 

And  in  my  soul  am  free, 
Angels  alone,  that  soar  above, 

Enjoy  such  liberty." 

By  the  side  of  the  memory  of  Lovelace  let  me  briefly 
place  that  of  a  poet  with  as  stout  a  heart,  but  pledged  to 
the  opposite  side  in  the  civil  wars, — "  honest  George 
Wither/'  the  author  of  so  many  pieces  that  literary  an- 
tiquaries have  scarce  been  able  to  gather  them  from  their 
obscurity.  The  homeliness  of  his  versification  places  his 
poetry  often  below  the  smooth  flow  of  Lovelace's  lyrics ; 
but  the  gallantry  of  the  cavalier  could  not  produce  strains 
of  more  fervid  chivalry  in  praise  of  female  loveliness. 
The  sentiment  was  never  more  feelingly  and  fancifully 
expressed  than  when,  for  instance,  in  part  of  a  long- 
sustained  strain,  he  exclaims, — 

"  Stars,  indeed,  fair  creatures  be; 
Yet,  amongst  us,  where  is  he 
Joys  not  more  the  while  he  lies 
Sunning  in  his  mistress'  eyes, 
Than  in  all  the  glimmering  light 
Of  a  starry  winter  night  ?" 

His  long  life  was  spent  in  a  perpetual  mood  of  poetical 
exaltation.  He  was  forever  writing  his  verses,  always 
after  a  fashion  of  his  own  and  under  most  unpropitious 
circumstances.  His  days  were  full  alternately  of  action 
and  suffering :  one  while  commanding  a  troop  of  horse 
in  the  service  of  the  Parliament;  again,  twice  deliberately 
abiding  in  London  to  witness  the  terrors  of  the  plague, 
or  braving  the  penalties  of  the  law ;  fined  and  impri- 
soned over  and  over  again  in  the  Tower,  the  Marshal- 
sea,  and  Newgate ;  and  yet  keeping  his  heart  whole 


GEORGE    WITHER.  263 


to  the  last.  It  has  been  well  said  of  him  that  he  was 
forever  anticipating  persecution  and  martyrdom,  fingering 
the  flames,  as  it  were,  to  try  how  he  could  bear  them. 
He  was  a  man  of  strong  and  serviceable  piety.  In  all 
the  ecclesiastical  feverishness  of  the  times,  he  ever 
called  himself  a  Catholic  Christian,  declaring  his  religion 
is  not  mumbling  over  thrice  a  day 

"  A  set  of  Ave-Marias,  or  of  creeds 
Or  many  hours  formally  to  pray, 
When  from  a  dull  devotion  it  proceeds ; 
Nor  is  it  up  and  down  the  land  to  seek 
To  find  those  well-breathed  lecturers  that  can 
Preach  thrice  a  Sabbath  and  six  times  a  week, 
Yet  be  as  fresh  as  when  they  first  began." 

At  the  age  of  seventy-three  he  was  cast  into  prison. 
I  have  shown  how  the  encaged  spirit  of  a  cavalier  could 
sing.  It  will  now  be  seen  that  Wither' s  Muse  could 
utter,  if  not  as  melodious,  a  more  thoughtful,  strain  : — 

"  And  is  this  Newgate,  whereof  so  afraid 
Offenders  are  ?     Is  this  the  dismal  place 
Wherein,  before  I  came,  I  heard  it  said 
There's  nothing  but  grief,  horror,  and  disgrace  ? 
I  find  it  otherwise  :  and  doubtless  either 
It  is  belyed,  or  they  who  are  sent  hither 
Within  themselves,  when  to  this  house  they  come, 
Bring  that  which  makes  it  seem  so  troublesome. 

"  I  no  worse  here  than  where  I  was  before 
Accommodated  am ;  for,  though  confined 
From  some  things,  which  concern  iny  body  more 
Than  formerly,  it  hath  enlarged  my  mind." 

The  same  indomitable  spirit — a  magnanimous  self-suffi- 
ciency— is  expressed  in  the  lines, — 


264  LECTURE    SEVENTH. 


"  My  mind's  my  kingdom ;  and  I  will  permit 
No  other's  will  to  have  the  rule  of  it  ; 
For  I  am  free,  and  no  man's  power  I  know 
Did  make  me  thus,  nor  shall  unmake  me  now : 
But,  through  a  spirit  none  can  quench  in  me, 
This  mind  I  got,  and  this  my  mind  shall  be." 

When  beggared  by  his  calamities,  he  consoles  himself 
on  the  loss  of  property  with  a  reflection  which  he  ex- 
presses with  a  fine  poetic  simile  : — 

"  I  with  my  losses  [am]  so  well  content 
As  is  a  Christian,  when,  by  Turks  pursued 
Who  overpower  him  by  their  multitude, 
He  wrecks  his  vessel  on  a  friendly  shore, 
Where  he  hath  life  and  freedom,  though  no  more." 

The  voyage  of  George  Wither' s  life  was  indeed  on  a 
stormy  sea.  According  to  the  sailor's  superstition,  the 
winds  were  forever  coming  at  his  whistling.  But  in  the 
worst  of  the  storm  it  was  always  in  his  power  to  bring 
his  tempest-tost  bark  to  ride  at  anchor, — the  anchorage 
of  Christian  hopefulness.  His  poetic  studies,  too,  were 
an  unceasing  delight  to  him ; — not  a  sentimental  luxury, 
weakening  his  energy  or  his  fortitude,  but  giving  renewed 
strength  to  his  stout  heart.  Earnestly  has  he  told  how 
his  spirit  was  ever  thus  invigorated,  in  lines  containing  a 
simple  but  as  strong  a  statement  of  a  student's  intellec- 
tual and  moral  resources — the  sun-shine  of  an  imaginative 
heart — as  ever  was  penned  : — 

"  They  cause  me  to  be  fearless  of  my  foes ; 
When  I  am  vexed,  my  spirits  they  compose ; 
When  I  am  poor,  they  are  in  stead  of  wealth ; 
When  I  am' sick,  they  help  repair  my  health  ; 
When  I  am  well,  they  are  iny  recreation, 
When  tempted  to  despair,  hope's  reparation : 


WITHER'S    ADDRESS    TO    HIS    MUSE.  265 


Thereby,  when  sadness  comes,  to  mirth  I  turn  it; 
When  I  am  slighted,  they  do  make  me  scorn  it. 
In  prisons  when  my  body  is  confined, 
They  do  so  many  ways  inlarge  my  mind, 
That,  doubting  whether  will  for  me  prove  best, — 
The  freedom  lost  or  that  which  is  possest,-.- 
I  use  the  means  of  both ;  but  wholly  leave 
The  choice  to  God ;  and  what  he  gives,  receive. 
They  are  companions  when  I'm  left  alone; 

They  find  me  work  to  do  when  I  have  none ; 
By  day  me  from  ill  company  they  keep, 
Make  nights  less  tedious  when  I  cannot  sleep. 
They  ease  me  when  I  am  opprest  with  wrongs ; 
When  I  want  music,  they  do  make  me  songs." 

T.his  literary  gratefulness  rises  on  a  higher  strain  in  his 
address  to  his  Muse  : — 

"  She's  my  mind's  companion  still, 
Spite  of  Envy's  evil  will ; 
She  doth  tell  me  where  to  borrow 
Comfort  in  the  midst  of  sorrow ; 
Makes  the  desolatest  place 
To  her  presence  be  a  grace, 
And  the  blackest  discontents 
To  be  pleasing  ornaments. 
In  my  former  days  of  bliss, 
Her  divine  skill  taught  me  this  : — 
That  from  every  thing  I  saw 
I  could  some  invention  draw, 
And  raise  pleasure  to  her  height, 
Through  the  meanest  object's  sight; 
By  the  murmur  of  a  spring, 
Or  the  least  bough  rustleing, — 
By  a  daisy  whose  leaves  spread 
Shut  when  Titan  goes  to  bed, — 
Or  a  shady  bush  or  tree, — 
She  could  more  infuse  in  me 
Than  all  nature's  beauties  can 
In  some  Other  wiser  man." 


LECTURE    SEVENTH. 


It  is  passages  like  these,  recognising  the  resources  of  a 
chastened  imagination  and  the  influence  of  true  poetry 
upon  individual  happiness,  that  have  won  for  George 
Wither,  neglected  as  his  memory  has  been,  a  fine 
tribute,  which,  in  closing  this  lecture,  I  desire  to  leave  in 
your  thoughts  : — "  The  praises  of  poetry  have  been  often 
sung  in  ancient  and  modern  times ;  strange  powers  have 
been  ascribed  to  it  of  influence  over  animate  and  inani- 
mate auditors;  its  force  over  fascinated  crowds  has  been 
acknowledged ;  but  before  Wither  no  one  ever  celebrated 
its  power  at  home,  the  wealth  and  the  strength  which 
this  divine  gift  confers  upon  its  possessor.  Fame — and 
that,  too,  after  death, — was  all  which  hitherto  the  poets 
had  promised  themselves  from  their  art.  It  seems  to  have 
been  left  to  (George)  Wither  to  discover  that  poetry 
was  a  present  possession  as  well  as  a  rich  reversion,  and 
that  the  Muse  had  promise  of  both  lives, — of  this  and 
of  that  which  is  to  come." 


LECTURE  VIII. 

£Ij£  ^gj  of  tin  Restoration: 

Ambiguities  in  the  general  titles  adopted  to  designate  particular 
literary  eras — The  last  quarter  of  the  seventeenth  century  the 
age  of  Dry  den — The  degraded  tastes  of  his  times — The  alliance 
of  high  poetry  with  virtue  —  The  true  standard  of  poetic  merit — 
Dryden's  poetry  a  reflection  of  the  times  of  Charles  II. —  Profli- 
gacy of  that  age  —  Character  of  Charles  Stuart  —  The  spirit  of 
Poetry  is  a  spirit  of  enthusiasm  —  The  debasing  effects  of  the 
Civil  Wars  —  Shaftesbury  as  Lord-Chancellor  —  Reception  of  the 
Paradise  Lost — M'instanley's  Lives  of  the  English  Poets — Milton's 
exposition  of  kingly  duty  —  The  Drama  during  the  Age  of  the 
Restoration  —  Dryden's  Plays  —  Defects  of  rhyming  Tragedies — 
"  The  Fall  of  Innocence" — Dryden's  alteration  of  "  The  Tempest" 
— "Absalom  and  Achitophel" — Buckingham — Literary  larceny — 
Sir  Egerton.  Brydges's  Lines  on  Milton  —  "The  Hind  and  the 
Panther" — "Alexander's  Feast" — Ode  for  St.  Cecilia's  Day — Dry- 
den's later  poetry. 

IN  studying  the  literature  of  a  nation  it  is  necessary 
to  bear  in  mind  that  general  titles  adopted  to  designate 
particular  eras  will  almost  inevitably  be  liable  to  ambi- 
guities, which  are  calculated  to  suggest,  imperceptibly, 
erroneous  impressions.  The  employment  of  the  title  of 
the  sovereign,  as  is  usual,  in  marking  the  periods  of  Eng- 
lish literature,  is  manifestly  attended  with  this  confusion  : 
— that  the  reign  may  not  be  found  to  correspond,  as  to 
time,  with  the  age  in  which  the  writers  flourished.  For 
instance,  the  literary  age  of  Queen  Elizabeth  is  not  the 

267 


LECTURE    EIGHTH. 


political  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth ;  for  half  of  the  reign 
was  spent  before  the  glory  of  its  poetry  was  developed. 
Again:  if  we  employ  the  name  of  the  most  illustrious 
author  to  indicate  a  period  of  literary  history,  the  mind 
unconsciously  adopts  an  opinion  which  may  be  greatly 
erroneous  : — that  his  fame  had  gained  in  his  own  times, 
the  influence  and  authority  it  has  received  only  from  pos- 
terity. In  this  respect,  there  would  be  an  absurdity  were 
we  to  speak  of  "  the  age  of  Milton/'  or  even  of  Shak- 
speare ;  for  many  years  rolled  over  the  graves  of  each  of 
those  poets  before  the  might  of  their  genius  was  realized. 
Especially  may  this  be  said  with  regard  to  Milton,  between 
whom  and  the  spirit  of  the  times  in  which  his  great  poem 
was  published  there  was  so  great  an  uncongeniality  that, 
to  refer  the  favourite  poets  of  those  days,  with  all  their 
poetical  heresies,  their  low  morality,  and  their  sins 
against  the  laws  of  pure  and  disciplined  imagination, 
to  the  age  of  Milton,  would  be  an  incongruity  as  flagrant 
as  the  Roman  usage  of  dating  the  age  of  their  casks  of 
wine  by  a  reference  to  the  date  of  the  magistracy  of  a 
consul, — a  cask  of  Falernian  stamped  with  a  name,  per- 
haps, as  stern  as  Caius  Marius. 

The  period  I  am  about  entering  upon  in  this  lecture 
forms  a  striking  exception  to  these  remarks ;  for,  if  we 
seek  a  title  to  designate  the  last  quarter  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  there  need  not  be  a  moment's  hesitation  in  appro- 
priating to  it  the  name  of  Dryden.  From  the  year  1674, 
when  the  death  of  Milton  took  place,  down  to  the  year 
1700, — the  date  of  Dryden' s  death, —  Dryden  held  in 
English  poetry  an  absolute  and  exclusive  supremacy. 
He  and  the  age  were  suited  to  each  other.  He  was  the 
fit  representative  of  the  times  of  Charles  II.  With  ta- 


ALLIANCE    OF    HIGH    POETRY    WITH    VIRTUE.      269 


lents  which  might,  by  moral  chastening  and  intellectual 
discipline,  have  secured  to  him  a  pure  fame,  he  prosti- 
tuted the  poet's  sacred  endowment  to  unholy  and  base 
purposes.  Now,  this  is  lamentable.  It  would  be  so  in 
the  annals  of  the  poetry  of  any  people ;  but  in  those  of 
English  poetry  it  is  doubly,  deeply  deplorable.  Think 
for  a  moment  of  the  mighty  minds  I  have  been  contem- 
plating in  the  previous  lectures, — mighty,  I  mean,  in 
their  purity  as  well  as  in  their  power,  indeed,  their 
purity  was  part  of  their  power;  think  of  Spenser's 
spotless  spirit,  knowing  no  debasement  in  years  either  of 
prosperity  or  adversity;  of  Shakspeare's  gentle  and 
gigantic  genius,  uncontaminated  even  by  the  courses 
into  which  his  life  was  cast;  and  of  Milton,  with  all 
his  partisanship  in  a  fierce  warfare,  still  keeping  his 
imagination  insphered  in  regions  of  serene  air, — 

"  Above  the  smoke  and  stir  of  this  dim  spot 
Which  men  call  earth." 

What  mortal  monarch  seated  on  earthly  throne,  though, 
like  Satan's  throne  in  Pandemonium,  it 

"  Outshone  the  wealth  of  Ormus  and  of  Ind, 
Or  where  the  gorgeous  East,  with  richest  hand, 
Showers  on  her  kings  barbaric  pearl  and  gold," — 

What  king,  I  say,  could,  either  by  kingly  power  or  by 
kingly  frown,  have  extorted  from  John  Milton  a  single 
line  profaning  the  sacred  trust  of  his  precious  talent,  held 
"ever  in  his  great  Taskmaster's  eye"  ?  Remember  how, 
as  we  have  been  considering  one  great  name  after  another 
on  the  register  of  England's  mighty  poets,  we  have  thus 
far  found  the  genius  of  all  of  them  enlisted  in  the  cause 


270  LECTURE    EIGHTH. 


of  virtue,  militant  on  the  side  of  truth,  nobly  fulfilling 
their  destiny,  and  leaving  behind  them  undying  words 
which  wing  their  flight  over  each  generation  as  it  rises 
and  passes  away ;  so  that  we,  I  hope,  may  have  caught 
some  enthusiasm  from  their  sound,  centuries  after  those 
words  were  first  uttered  : — 

"  Blessings  be  with  them,  and  eternal  praise, 

Who  gave  us  nobler  loves  and  nobler  cares, — 
The  poets  who,  on  earth,  have  made  us  heirs 
Of  truth  and  pure  delight  by  heavenly  lays." 

This  benediction  is  not  due  to  all,  however  rightfully 
they  may  claim  the  title  of  poet.  There  is  one  principle 
I  shall  cling  to  at  every  part  of  these  lectures,  because  I 
am  deeply  convinced  of  its  truth,  and  because,  too,  the 
annals  of  English  poetry  will  sustain  me  in  it : — that  one 
inseparable  attribute  of  all  the  highest  poetry  is  alliance 
with  virtue ;  that  its  tendency,  mute  though  it  be  to  the 
sensual  and  the  dark,  is  to  make  the  wise  and  the  good 
still  wiser,  still  better,  still  happier.  Has  it  not  been  so, 
even  after  making  full  allowance  for  all  violations  of  pro- 
priety in  less  refined  states  of  society,  with  every  one  of 
the  great  poets  we  have  been  considering  ?  Let  their 
pure,  imaginative  morality  be  remembered,  both  because 
I  do  not  wish  to  lead  you  unadvised  into  a  different 
poetic  atmosphere,  and  because,  before  this  course  is 
closed,  I  must  apply  this  principle  to  other  eminent 
names  besides  that  of  Dryden. 

I  am  anxious  to  render  justice  to  Dryden's  powers, 
and  shall  strive  to  do  so.  Neither  do  I  wish  to  limit 
literary  research  or  taste  to  the  productions  of  the  great 
masters;  for  English  poetry  abounds  with  poems  of  un- 
numbered degrees  of  merit :  i|s  secondary  poetry  is  rich ; 


CHARACTER  OF  DRYDEX'S  POETRY.       271 


so  is  its  minor  poetry ;  and  even  from  the  poetry  of 
writers  whose  names  are  unknown  to  fame,  as  fragrant 
an  anthology  could  be  culled  as  in  the  literature  of  any 
language.  But  when  I  hear  people  talk  of  the  poets 
carelessly  or  ignorantly,  or,  it  may  be,  intentionally, 
coupling  in  an  indiscriminate  series  Spenser,  Milton, 
Dryden,  and  Pope,  every  principle  of  judgment  and 
feeling  and  taste  revolts.  When  taking  Milton's  stan- 
dard, and  acknowledging  for  the  greatest  poetry  only 
that  which  is  full  of  religious,  of  glorious  and  magnifi- 
cent uses,  and  then  looking  at  the  uses  to  which  Dryden 
debased  his  imagination,  the  question  as  to  his  poetic 
rank  becomes  simply  a  question  how  can  this  cor- 
ruption put  on  the  incorruption  of  a  great  poet's  glory. 
In  the  course  of  these  lectures  I  have  had  occasion  to 
remark  the  influence  exercised  on  the  genius  of  the 
poets  by  the  spirit  of  the  times  they  lived  in,  but  never 
finding  that  influence  acquiring  an  ascendency  over  their 
innate  powers.  Passing  events  seemed  to  float  over  their 
lives,  as  on  a  sunny  day  the  shadow  of  a  floating  cloud 
is  seen  to  speed  over  the  surface  of  the  fields,  giving, 
indeed,  different  hues  and  tints,  but  not  changing  native 
and  unalterable  colours.  Whatever  adaptation  the  great 
poets  made  to  their  respective  times,  they  ever  kept  that 
independence  which  gives  to  genius  its  home  amid  many 
generations.  With  Dryden  a  different  relation  began; 
for  he  sought  a  habitation  steaming  with  a  thousand 
vices,  and  there  he  dwelt  till  his  garland  and  singing- 
robes  were  polluted  by  the  contagion.  Throughout  Dry- 
den's  poems  may  be  traced,  in  a  distinct  reflection,  the 
character  of  the  times  of  Charles  II. ;  and  each  should, 
therefore,  be  examined  by  the  literary  or  historical  stu- 


272  LECTURE    EIGHTH. 


dent,  for  they  are  reciprocally  illustrative.  The  temper 
of  that  time  is  stamped  upon  its  literature.  The  poets, 
instead  of  their  high  office  of  "allaying  the  perturba- 
tions of  the  mind  and  setting  the  affections  in  right 
tune,"  had  no  worthier  charge  than  to  pamper  the  low 
passions  of  a  worthless  and  adulterate  generation.  There 
probably  never  was  a  period  of  literature  when  it  was 
more  affected  by  extrinsic  agencies  than  that  now  under 
review, — the  age  of  the  second  Charles.  Let  us  look, 
therefore,  for  a  moment  or  two,  at  its  characteristics. 

Memory  may  run  over  the  whole  period  of  more  than 
two  thousand  years, — the  life  of  our  British  ancestry, — 
and  not  find  any  portion  of  ft  so  loathsome  as  those 
twenty  years  during  which  Charles  Stuart  the  younger 
was  restored  to  the  throne  of  his  fathers. 

Happier  would  it  have  been  for  any  one  having  a 
man's  heart  within  his  breast  to  live  in  the  barbaric  age 
of  British  paganism,  with  all  its  ferocity,  and  the  terrors 
of  a  hideous  superstition, — when,  in  Cowper's  fine  lines, — 

"  The  Druids  struck  the  -well-strung  harps  they  bore, 
With  fingers  deeply  dyed  in  human  gore ; 
And,  while  the  victim  slowly  bled  to  death, 
Upon  the  tolling  chords  rung  out  his  dying  breath;" — 

Better  to  have  lived  amid  the  wild  consternation  of  the 
fiercest  of  England's  invasions  or  the  bloodiest  of  its  civil 
wars, — better  in  the  dismay  of  Mary's  martyrdoms,  or 
beneath  the  iron  rod  of  Cromwell's  military  usurpation, — 
than  to  have  pined  heartsick  at  the  sight  of  all  the  de- 
basing profligacy  which  burst  upon  England  at  the  time 
of  the  Restoration.  When  Cowley,  with  the  fervour  of 
royalty  upon  him,  gave  vent  to  his  indignation  at  the 
Protector's  dynasty,  it  was  in  a  strain  which  would  have 


CHARACTER    OF    CHARLES    STUART.  273 


better  fitted  the  lips  of  a  generous  Briton  chafing  under 
the  abominations  of  his  country, — its  hereditary  monarch 
restored : — 

"Come  the  eleventh  plague  rather  this  should  be; 

Come  sink  us  rather  in  the  sea; 
Come  rather  pestilence  and  reap  us  down; 
Come  God's  sword,  rather  than  our  own. 
Let  rather  Roman  come  again, 
Or  Saxon,  Norman,  or  the  Dane. 
In  all  the  bonds  we  ever  bore, 
We  grieved,  we  sighed,  we  wept ;  we  never  Hushed  before." 

Upon  Charles  Stuart  the  lesson  of  adversity  was  wasted. 
After  a  childhood  and  youth  pampered  with  the  perilous 
luxury  that  attends  the  footsteps  of  an  heir  to  royalty,  tho 
full  cup  of  his  confident  hopes  was  dashed  from  his  lips, 
when  calamities  undreamed  of  were  poured  down  upon 
the  royal  household.  The  only  occasion  when  he  showed  a 
manly  spirit — when,  backed  by  Scottish  courage,  he  staked 
his  fortunes  on  the  field  of  battle  to  gain  the  throne  of 
his  fathers — had  been  preceded  by  an  act  of  perjured 
hypocrisy;  for,  kneeling  on  the  spot  where  his  royal  Scot- 
tish ancestors  had  sworn  their  coronation-oath,  he  called 
God  to  witness  his  plighted  faith  to  a  covenant  he  both 
detested  and  despised.  The  mailed  hand  of  Cromwell 
was  still  the  hand  of  victory;  and  the  defeat  at  Worcester 
left  the  young  king  an  outcast  and  a  fugitive,  sheltered 
only  by  the  indomitable  loyalty  of  his  adherents,  whose 
devotion  he  had  no  heart  to  be  grateful  for,  for  he  prized 
it  at  no  dearer  rate  than  the  trunk  of  the  oak  which  once 
hid  him  from  his  pursuers.  He  fled  to  France,  abandon- 
ing himself  to  effeminate,  vulgar  and  vicious  pleasures. 
Unhappily,  the  British  blood  that  flowed  in  his  veins  was 

VOL.  I.  18 


274  LECTURE    EIGHTH. 


mingled  with  the  blood  of  one  of  those  licentious 
nioiiarchs  who  had  soiled  the  purity  of  the  French  mo- 
narchy :  it  will  be  remembered  he  was  the  grandson  of 
Henry  IV. 

Let  it  not  be  thought  that  I  am  wandering  from  my 
subject.  I  seek  to  show  that  if  the  spirit  of  a  nation  goes 
down,  its  poetry,  if  suffered  to  sympathize  with  the  causes 
of  its  degradation,  will  go  down  with  it.  In  the  spirit 
of  those  times,  and  of  Charles  II.  as  representing  it, 
I  can  find  ample  explanation  of  the  sinking  of  English 
poetry.  Every  pure  and  noble  sentiment,  every  generous 
emotion,  every  lofty  thought,  became  a  jest.  Now,  these 
are  the  life  of  poetry,  which  in  its  best  forms  can  breathe 
only  in  an  atmosphere  of  purity;  and  whenever  such  can- 
not be  found  it  is  the  chief  duty  of  poetry  to  create  it, — 
to  ventilate,  as  it  were,  a  stagnant  and  corrupted  air.  The 
spirit  of  poetry — and,  let  me  add,  too,  the  love  of  it — is  a 
spirit  of  enthusiasm.  Amid  the  wide-spread  corruption, 
the  writings  of  a  few  poets  and  not  a  few  of  the  clergy 
show  that  all  hearts  were  not  defiled;  and  that  brazen  age 
was  well  described  by  one  of  its  divines,  when  he  said, 
"To  fight  against  religion  by  scoffing  is  the  game  the 
devil  seems  to  be  playing  in  the  present  age.  He  hath 
tryed  the  power  and  rage  of  the  mighty  and  the  wit  and 
knowledge  of  the  learned,  but  these  have  not  succeeded 
for  the  destruction  of  religion;  and  therefore  now  he  is 
making  an  experiment  by  another  sort  of  enemies,  and 
sets  the  apes  and  drollers  upon  it.  And  certainly  there 
was  never  any  other  age  in  which  sacred  things  have  been 
so  rudely  and  impudently  assaulted  by  the  profane  abuses 
of  jesters  and  buffoons,  who  have  been  the  contempt  of 
all  wise  times,  but  are  the  darlings  and  wits  of  these." 


DEBASING    EFFECTS    OF    THE    CIVIL    WARS.        275 


The  severe  discipline  of  Puritan  morality  once  removed, 
there  came  quickly  in  its  stead  a  lawlessness  whose  pride 
was  its  freedom  from  all  restraint.  Immorality  was  a 
thing  men  boasted  of;  they  took  a  party-pride  in  vice. 
The  civil  wars  had  also  demoralized  the  people,  by  break- 
ing up  the  habits  and  regularity  of  domestic  life.  House- 
holds were  destroyed,  and  their  proprietors  found  a  resi- 
dence in  taverns;  and,  when  the  causes  of  such  disordered 
life  had  passed  away,  the  low  habits  it  had  engendered 
were  left  behind.  Often,  beggared  by  the  wars,  the 
sufferers  were  driven,  in  the  words  of  as  gallant  a  cavalier 
as  Lovelace,  "to  steep  their  thirsty  grief  in  wine." 
During  the  Middle  Ages,  the  miseries  that  followed  in 
the  train  of  war  had  been  famine  and  pestilence ;  but 
after  the  civil  wars  in  England  came  debauchery,  licen- 
tiousness, riot,  and  blasphemy.  To  such  a  condition  of 
public  feeling  the  only  poetry  that  could  be  welcome  was 
that  prostituted  form  of  it  which  delights  in  loose  lays 
or  bacchanalian  orgies.  The  intellectual  tastes  of  Charles 
II.  have  been  historically  recorded,  and  are  typical  of 
his  times.  Mentally,  he  was  by  no  means  deficient,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  possessed  of  much  quickness  of  mind. 
Quotations  from  Hudibras,  with  all  the  indecencies  of  its 
wit,  were  often  on  his  lips;  the  bombastic  tragedies  and 
the  obscene  comedies  of  the  Kestoration  were  congenial 
to  him,  and  doubtless,  too,  the  songs  of  Sedley  and  Ro- 
chester. There  was  another  taste  of  the  monarch,  illus- 
trative also  of  the  downward  course  of  the  spirit  of  the 
age, — a  sort  of  zeal  for  material  science,  prosecuted  to  the 
exclusion  of  all  spirituality.  The  king  had  his  private 
laboratory,  where  he  carried  on  experiments  as  far  re- 
moved from  a  true  love  of  science  as  the  filthy  chemistry 


276  LECTURE    EIGHTH. 


in  the  cauldrons  of  the  witches  in  "  Macbeth."  Charles  II. 
was  a  materialist  in  the  grossest  sense  of  the  word : — 

"  One  all  eyes 
Philosopher !  a  fingering  slave ; 

One  that  would  peep  and  botanize 
Upon  his  mother's  grave !" 

It  has  been  his  good  luck,  however,  to  gain  the  epithet 
of  the  "merry  monarch;"  and  thus  has  many  a  one  been 
led  to  think  that  good-nature  and  a  sportive  temper,  an 
amiable  playfulness,  were  his  attributes.  The  sport  he 
made  was  with  things  he  ought  to  have  held  in  reverence; 
and  he  played  with  honour  and  justice,  with  womanly 
virtue  and  all  noble  emotions.  We  often  forget,  in  laugh- 
ing at  the  frolics  of  the  king  or  his  courtiers,  how  danger- 
ous were  their  jests.  "When  one  of  the  most  profligate 
of  his  adherents  was  raised  most  unworthily  to  a  high 
station,  judicial  dignity  was  made  sport  with,  and  the 
people  taught  to  ridicule  what  they  should  have  stood  in 
awe  of.  A  contemporary  historian  thus  tells  of  one  of 
these  adventures.  When  Lord-Chancellor  Shaftesbury 
ordered  his  procession  to  Westminster  Hall  on  the  first- 
day  of  term,  "his  lordship  had  an  early  fancy  or  freak,  the 
day,  (when  all  the  officers  of  the  law,  king's  counsel,  and 
judges,  used  to  wait  upon  the  great  seal  to  Westminster 
Hall,)  to  make  this  procession  on  horseback,  as  in  old 
time  the  way  was,  when  coaches  were  not  so  rife;  and 
accordingly  the  judges,  &c.  were  spoken  to,  to  get  horses, 
as  they  and  all  the  rest  did,  by  borrowing  and  hiring,  and 
so  equipped  themselves  with  black  footcloths  in  the  best 
manner  they  could :  and  divers  of  the  nobility,  as  usdal, 
in  compliance  and  honour  to  a  new  Lord-Chancellor,  at- 
tended also  in  their  equipments.  Upon  notice  in  town 


SHAFTESBURY    AS    LORD-CHANCELLOR.  277 


of  this  cavalcade  all  the  show-company  took  their  places 
at  windows  and  balconies,  with  the  foot-guard  in  the 
streets,  to  partake  of  the  fine  sight;  and,  being  once  well- 
settled  for  the  march,  it  moved,  as  the  design  was,  statelily 
along.  But  when  they  came  to  straights  and  interrup- 
tions, for  want  of  gravity  in  the  beasts,  and  too  much  in 
the  riders,  there  happened  some  curvetting  which  made 
no  little  disorder.  Judge  Twisden,  to  his  great  affright 
and  the  consternation  of  his  grave  brethren,  was  laid 
along  in  the  dirt;  but  all  at  length  arrived  safe,  without 
loss  of  life  or  limb  in  the  service.  This  accident  was 
enough  to  divert  the  like  frolic  for  the  future;  and  the 
very  next  term  they  fell  to  their  coaches  as  before." 

This  certainly  must  have  been  a  comical  spectacle. 
The  grave  dignitaries  of  the  bench,  deprived  of  their 
long-enjoyed  security  of  rolling  along  in  their  huge,  lum- 
bering coaches  of  state,  and  unexpectedly  ordered  on  this 
cavalry-service;  the  steeds,  fretted  by  the  timid  and 
awkward  horsemanship  of  men  whose  skill  lay  in  other 
subjects,  and  judicial  authority,  of  but  little  avail  in  their 
procession,  and  soon  converted  into  judicial  consternation 
when  poor  Judge  Twisden  was  unhorsed  at  full  length 
in  the  mire  of  a  London  street.  But,  setting  aside  the 
ludicrousness  of  the  mishap  of  this  judicial  cavalcade,  it 
was  a  frolic  which  could  hardly  have  been  ventured  on  ex- 
cept by  a  chancellor  of  such  a  monarch.  It  was  a  piece 
of  reckless  frivolity  worthy  alike  of  Shaftesbury  and  of 
Charles, —  men  to  whose  unbridled  humours  profligacy 
was  a  jest.  "  Shaftesbury,"  said  the  king,  on  one  occasion, 
"  thou  art  the  wickedest  dog  in  England."  "  3Iay  it  please 
your  majesty,"  replied  the  statesman,  dutifully  yielding 
the  post  of  honor,  "of  a  subject,  I  believe  I  am." 


278  LECTURE    EIGHTH. 


Let  me  ask,  What  hope  could  there  be  for  poetry  to 
escape  the  gibe  and  the  jest  in  an  age  when  authority  in 
high  places  could  thus  make  the  ermine  "a  motley  to 
the  view"  ?  The  temper  more  adverse  than  any  other  to 
poetry  is  the  predominance  of  unchastened  ridicule ;  for 
the  simple  reason  that  it  is  a  temper  at  variance  with  all 
that  is  sublime  or  graceful  in  humanity.  If  the  poet 
cannot  wing  his  flight  above  the  reach  of  parodies  and 
satirical  jests  and  all  the  light  archery  of  ridicule,  his 
region  must  be  a  low  and  impure  one,  in  which  the  fire 
of  the  best  poetry  cannot  be  sustained. 

A  literary  question,  affecting  the  character  of  the 
times  I  am  now  speaking  of,  has  been  discussed  by 
several  writers,  by  whom  different  opinions  are  enter- 
tained respecting  the  reception  of  Milton's  "Paradise 
Lost."  The  fact  of  thirteen  hundred  copies  having  been 
sold  in  two  years,  (entitling  the  author,  I  may  mention  in 
passing,  to  a  second  payment  of  five  pounds,)  and  of 
three  thousand  copies  being  sold  in  eleven  years,  has 
been  much  relied  on  to  prove  that  the  slowness  of  Mil- 
ton's advance  to  the  glory  of  his  earthly  fame  has  been 
exaggerated.  This  is  no  proof  of  his  contemporaries 
having  done  justice  to  the  poem,  nor  does  it  sanction 
the  conclusion  of  the  poet's  having  attained  any  thing 
like  what  may  be  called  popularity,  which  was  then 
under  a  dominion,  in  the  jurisdiction  of  taste,  which 
could  not  by  any  possibility  have  recognised  the  high 
and  chaste  splendour  of  Milton's  imagination.  It  has 
been  well  asked  and  answered,  Who  were  the  readers 
and  the  buyers  of  the  "  Paradise  Lost"  ?  They  were 
the  small  number  of  Milton's  friends  and  the  liberal 
lovers  of  true  poetry,  who  are  many,  though  not  the  many: 


RECEPTION    OF    THE    PARADISE    LOST.  270 


— young  men  eager  to  admire,  who  found  a  new  power 
created  within  them  by  the  influence  of  that  mighty  orb 
of  song;  and  old  men  that  felt  their  youth  restored  in 
all  its  energy,  but  with  none  of  its  turbulence,  by  that 
divine  harmony.  But  these  were  readers  whose  in- 
fluence on  public  opinion  must  have  been  inappreciably 
small  in  their  generation.  The  dissolute  monarch  and 
some  equally  dissolute  nobles  were  for  a  time  the  literary 
dictators.  As  to  influence  from  other  quarters,  it  has 
been  well  though  strongly  said  that  the  classical  Re- 
publicans were  few  and  inefficient;  the  Puritans  would 
not  read  poetry;  the  High-Church  bigots  would  read 
nothing  but  what  emanated  from  their  own  party;  the 
commonplace,  roystering  Royalists  were  seldom  sober 
enough  to  read,  and  the  mob-fanatics  did  not  know  their 
letters. 

But  I  desire  no  better  proof  to  show  how  unheeded 
were  Milton's  inspirations  by  the  common  mind  of  those 
times  than  a  fine  passage  closing  one  of  the  books  of 
"Paradise  Regained."  A  literary  censorship  was  part 
of  the  machinery-  of  the  monarchy;  and,  when  in  some 
tragedy  or  other  there  was  a  plot  which  chanced  to  be 
typical  of  Charles  II.'s  profligacy,  the  hand  of  the  censor 
was  placed  upon  it,  not  because  there  was  danger  that 
the  representation  might,  like  Hamlet's  play,  catch  the 
conscience  of  the  king,  or,  in  Shakspeare's  phrase, 
"  make  mad  the  guilty  and  appall  the  free,"  but  because 
the  people,  in  their  familiar  intercourse  with  the  drama, 
might  have  quickly  and  offensively  applied  the  play  to 
their  own  sovereign.  Now,  the  passage  I  am  about  to 
cite  from  Milton  could  have  passed  uncensured  only 
because  overlooked  as  innocent  from  the  anticipated 


280  LECTURE    EIGHTH. 


neglect  of  the  poem  in  an  unworthy  age.  It  is  a  noble 
exposition  of  kingly  duty, —  the  office  of  a  king  set  forth 
with  a  sublime  morality  by  a  republican, —  a  placid  ad- 
monition, full  at  the  same  time  of  the  deepest  implied 
rebuke  to  one  like  him  under  whose  sway  it  was  written  : — 

"  A  crown, 

Golden  in  show,  is  but  a  wreath  of  thorns  ; 
Brings  dangers,  troubles,  cares,  and  sleepless  nights 
To  him  who  wears  the  regal  diadem 
When  on  his  shoulders  each  man's  burden  lies. 
For  therein  stands  the  office  of  a  king, 
His  honour,  virtue,  merit,  and  chief  praise, 
That  for  the  public  all  this  weight  he  bears. 
Yet  he  who  reigns  within  himself,  and  rules 
Passions,  desires,  and  fears,  is  more  a  king ; 
Which  every  wise  and  virtuous  man  attains  j 
And  who  attains  not,  ill  aspires  to  rule 
Cities  of  men,  or  headstrong  multitudes, 
Subject  himself  to  anarchy  within, 
Or  lawless  passions  in  him,  which  he  serves. 
But  to  guide  nations  in  the  way  of  truth 
By  saving  doctrine,  and  from  error  lead 
To  know,  and,  knowing,  worship  God  aright, 
Is  yet  more  kingly.     This  attracts  the  soul, 
Governs  the  inner  man,  the  nobler  part; 
That  other  o'er  the  body  only  reigns, 
And  oft  by  force ;  which,  to  a  generous  mind, 
So  reigning,  can  be  no  sincere  delight." 

Dryden's  career  of  authorship  began  some  years  before 
the  publication  of  Mikon's  great  poems.  One  of  his 
early  pieces  was  his  heroic  stanzas  on  the  death  of 
Cromwell;  and,  when  the  Restoration  took  place,  he 
veered  quickly  round,  and  was  ready  with  a  congratu- 
latory poem  on  the  happy  return  of  His  Sacred  Majesty 
Charles  II.  and  a  panegyric  for  the  coronation-day. 


THE    DRAMA    DURING    THE    RESTORATION. 


When,  after  the  austere  years  of  the  commonwealth, 
poetical  composition  began  to  be  again  cultivated,  it 
resumed  the  form  of  the  metaphysical  poetry  of  the 
preceding  years,  resembling — to  borrow  Sir  Walter  Scott's 
clever  simile — those  who,  after  a  long  mourning,  resume 
for  a  time  their  ordinary  dresses,  of  which  the  fashion  has 
in  the  mean  time  passed  away.  But  it  was  only  a  short- 
continued  revival.  A  new  fashion  of  taste  was  coming 
instead  of  the  harsh  and  scholastic  form  which  had  been 
so  laboriously  cultivated. 

One  immediate  consequence  of  the  Restoration  was  the 
opening  of  the  theatres  and  the  attendant  renewal  of  dra- 
matic literature.  It  was  not,  however,  the  renewal  of  the 
old  drama, — the  drama  of  Shakspeare  and  his  strong  con- 
temporaries. That  was  too  massy  for  a  frivolous  genera- 
tion. Besides,  Charles  II.  came  back  to  his  native  land 
with  tastes  as  corrupt  as  his  morals.  The  French  drama 
had  grown  familiar  and  pleasing  to  his  ear;  and,  however 
it  ruay  have  suited  the  region  of  France,  it  never  was 
meant  to  be  domesticated  in  England. 

The  literature  of  every  language  has  its  distinctive  and 
proper  characteristics;  and,  whenever  any  attempt  is  made 
to  disguise  them  in  a  foreign  dress,  injury  is  inevitably 
done  by  the  metamorphosis.  In  this  way  the  English 
drama  was  spoiled  by  the  Gallican  character  that  was  given 
to  it ;  and  in  a  similar  way,  let  me  here  add,  would  good 
prose  writing  be,  were  it  possible  .for  the  intolerable  at- 
tempt of  a  few  living  writers — one  especially  of  consider- 
able power,  (Carlyle) — to  Germanize  English  style,  to  re- 
ceive a  general  sanction.  The  imported  influence  on  the 
drama  of  England  gave  it  a  forced,  unnatural,  hyperbolical 
inflation,  greatly  contrasted  witli  it*  true  native  power. 


282  LECTURE    EIGHTH. 


The  stately  march  and  the  pompous  diction  which  it  was 
deemed  proper  for  the  French  stage  to  assume  in  the 
august  presence  of  Louis  XIV.  was  to  be  acted  over  in 
the  presence  of  his  kinsman  Charles  II.  The  tragedies 
which  this  taste  gave  rise  to  were  what  were  called  the 
heroic  plays.  All  the  men  were  made  to  speak  in  the 
stately  style  of  fanciful  heroes,  and  all  the  women  were  to 
be  veritable  tragedy-queens.  These  dramas  are  also  en- 
titled, with  reference  to  another  trait,  "the  rliym!r«j 
tragedies."  The  blank  verse,  so  admirably  proved,  in  the 
earlier  and  incomparably  better  dramas,  as  suited  to  the 
expression  of  passion,  was  laid  aside,  and  Dryden  boldly 
vindicated  the  use  of  rhyme,  the  unceasing  recurrence 
of  identical  sounds  in  the  most  monotonous  form  of 
rhyme, — the  couplet, — as  a  step  in  advance  of  his  great 
dramatic  predecessors,  and  as  carrying  the  drama  another 
degree  on  towards  perfection.  Immediately  after  the 
Restoration,  Dryden  devoted  his  powers  to  the  popular 
and  patronized  labour  of  manufacturing  acting  plays  for 
the  stage :  he  became  a  prolific  playwright,  producing 
more  tragedies  than  I  have  been  at  the  pains  of  counting. 
He  wrote  them  by  contract,  the  bargain  stipulating  the 
number,  the  time,  and  the  compensation;  and  the  result 
was,  in  most  cases,  very  like  what  is,  I  believe,  the  us-ual 
character  of  contract-labour.  But  these  plays  of  Dryden's 
answered  the  author's  purpose :  they  were  written  to  sell, 
and  not  to  survive  their  temporary  service.  They  were 
received  in  the  green-room,  acted,  applauded,  printed, 
and  are  forgotten.  They  may  be  revived,  so  far  as  a 
reprint  in  Dryden's  Complete  Works,  as  edited  by  Sir 
"Walter  Scott,  is  a  revival;  but,  for  all  that,  they  are  dead 
beyond  all  chance — I  will  not  say  hope — of  restoration. 


DilYDEN'S    PLAYS.  283 


Their  only  resuscitation  is  an  occasional  exhumation  by 
some  labourer  in  obsolete  literature,  bringing  them  to 
light  again,  like  poor  "  Yorick's  skull,"  the  king's  jester, 
full  of  dirt  and  jowled  to  the  ground  and  knocked  about 
the  mazzard  by  a  sexton's  spade;  and  then  these  dead 
things  of  a  once  busy  poet  may  be  moralized  over  by 
some  literary  student  in  Hamlet's  very  words : — "Alas! 
poor  Yorick ! — a  fellow  of  infinite  jest  and  most  excellent 
fancy:  where  be  your  jibes  now?  your  gambols?  your 
songs  ?  the  dust  is  earth." 

It  is  not  my  intention  to  illustrate  by  quotation  the 
bad  taste  and  the  wretched  poetry  of  the  heroic  plays  in 
which  Dryden  had  so  guilty  a  share;  for,  while  I  am  re- 
lying greatly  upon  your  indulgence  in  a  course  of  lectures 
so  comprehensive  in  its  range  as  that  I  have  ventured 
on,  it  would  not  be  prudent  to  put  your  patience  in 
jeopardy  by  imposing  on  you  tasteless  and  uninteresting 
citations.  Let  me  say  that  the  whole  theory  of  these 
productions  was  unsound;  and  I  will  endeavour  to  show 
it  in  a  way  which  will  at  the  same  time  give  me  the  op- 
portunity of  introducing  something  in  the  way  of  inci- 
dental comment  on  Shakspeare.  It  will  be  remembered 
by  every  one,  that  in  the  tragedy  of  Hamlet  there  is 
introduced  a  little  drama  which  is  acted  in  the  presence 
of  the  imaginary  king  and  courtiers, — a  play,  therefore, 
within  a  play.  It  must  have  been  observed  too,  by  even 
careless  readers  of  our  great  dramatist,  without  perhaps 
being  aware  of  the  reason  for  it,  that  the  style  of  the  play 
before  the  king  is  wholly  different  from  the  style  of  Shak- 
speare's  own  play.  The  secondary  play,  as  I  may  call  it,  is 
in  rhyme;  the  sentiments  are  in  an  exaggerated  vein,  and 
the  language  hyperbolical :  how  different  from  the  primary 


2S4  LECTURE    EIGHTH. 


play,  Shakspeare's  own  exquisite  blank  verse  and  his  just 
tone  of  thought  and  feeling,  as  may  readily  be  shown  by 
placing  a  few  lines  of  each  in  contrast !  I  select  expressions 
of  thought  not  altogether  unlike : — 

"  Orderly  to  end,  where  I  begun 
Our  wills  and  fates  do  so  contrary  run 
That  our  devices  still  are  overthrown ; 
Our  thoughts  are  ours,  their  ends  none  of  our  own: 
So  think  thou  wilt  no  second  husband  wed  ; 
But  die  thy  thoughts,  when  thy  first  lord  is  dead." 

Now  by  the  side  of  this  observe  a  meditation  of  Shak- 
Bpeare  clothed  in  his  appropriate  diction : — 

"  Our  indiscretion  sometimes  serves  us  well, 
When  our  deep  plots  do  pall  ,•  and  that  should  teach  us, 
There's  a  divinity  that  shapes  our  ends, 
Rough-hew  them  how  we  will." 

In  this  difference  of  style,  both  of  thought  and  lan- 
guage, Shakspeare  acted  from  a  deep  principle  of  art. 
If  the  play  within  the  play  had  been  expressed  in  his 
usual  style,  there  would  have  been  nothing  to  distin- 
guish it.  It  was  necessary  to  have  a  line  of  discrimina- 
tion between  the  two;  otherwise  Hamlet  and  the  dramatic 
interlude  woven  into  the  plot  would  have  been  very 
much  the  same  thing.  But  how  was  this  to  be  accom- 
plished? In  a  way  manifesting  Shakspeare's  perfect 
sense  of  the  true  philosophy  of  the  drama  as  an  imagina- 
tive imitation  of  life.  The  play  to  be  acted  at  Hamlet's 
suggestion,  to  satisfy  his  doubts  of  the  king's  guilt,  was, 
of  course,  one  degree  further  removed  from  nature;  and 
consequently  a  style  proportionately  removed  from  the 
ordinary  speech  of  life  was  appropriated  to  it :  a  hyper- 
bolical strain  was  needed  to  show  its  position  beyond  the 


CHANGE    OF    DHYDEX'S    STYLE.  2S5 


primary  drama,  it  being  an  imitation  within  an  imitation, 
and  the  most  fastidious  taste  is  thus  unconsciously  recon- 
ciled to  its  exaggerations.  Now,  in  applying  these  prin- 
ciples to  the  heroic  tragedies  of  Dryden,  it  is  perceived 
that  the  author  has  gone  directly  to  the  exaggerations, 
without  any  of  that  necessity  which  is  the  explanation 
of  Shakspeare's  employment  of  such  a  style.  The  simple 
language  of  imagination  was  not  stimulant  enough  for  a 
vitiated  taste.  The  bounds  of  nature,  within  which  the 
genius  of  Shakspeare  moved,  were  disdainfully  overleaped ; 
and  the  consequence  was  bombast  and  fustian  and  all  ex- 
travagance. 

After  Dryden  had  wasted  much  of  his  strength  on 
his  rhyming  tragedies,  his  opinions  began  to  undergo  a 
change,  and,  perhaps  with  a  truer  appreciation  of  Shak- 
speare, to  perceive  that  the  fashion  he  had  so  greatly 
encouraged  was  nothing  more  than  a  fashion.  The  pre- 
valent dramatic  style  had  been  keenly  satirized,  in  the 
famous  parody,  "  The  Rehearsal,"  by  the  witty  and  profli- 
gate Villiers,  Duke  of  Buckingham, — Dryden  being  held 
up  to  chief  ridicule  in  the  prominent  character  of  the 
dramatic  author  "  Bayes."  The  sharp  shaft  pierced  him, 
giving  not  a  mortal  but  a  poisoned  wound;  for  Dryden 
reserved  his  vengeance  for  the  weighty  blow  he  dealt  to 
Buckingham  some  years  after  in  his  celebrated  political 
satire.  When  the  rhyme  was  relinquished  and  blank 
verse  adopted  by  Dryden,  in  his  later  tragedies,  his  tone 
rose  with  the  change;  and  now  and  then  a  passage  may  be 
discovered  of  admirable  poetic  cast. 

Before  dismissing  the  dramatic  part  of  Dryden's  career 
of  authorship,  two  of  his  productions  should  be  men- 
tioned, as  singularly  illustrative  of  the  perverted  taste  of 


286  LECTURE    EIGHTH. 


the  writer,  and  of  those  for  whom  he  wrote.  The  first 
was  his  paraphrase  of  "  Paradise  Lost/'  which  he  tra- 
duced into  a  rhyming  play,  in  five  acts,  entitled  "  The 
Fall  of  Innocence  :" — a  work  the  merit  of  which  may 
be  conjectured  from  the  plan  of  it,  and,  to  my  mind, 
conclusive  that  Dryden  could  not  have  had  a  just  appre- 
ciation of  the  great  epic  poet.  I  know  there  is  an  ex- 
pression of  Dryden's  often  quoted  to  prove  his  admira- 
tion of  Milton ;  but  there  is  also  enough  to  show  that 
he  considered  himself  on  this  occasion  as  refining  the 
matchless  poem  he  was  tampering  with,  and  as  giving  it 
a  polish  and  grace  it  stood  in  need  of.  A  still  bolder 
venture  was  when,  jointly  with  Davenant,  he  undertook 
to  improve  Shakspeare's  exquisite  play,  "  The  Tempest/ 
and  gave  it  the  altered  form  which  is  still  listened  to  in 
the  theatres,  doubtless,  by  not  a  few,  as  the  real  original 
production.  This  abuse  of  another  of  his  unapproach- 
able predecessors  was  also  accompanied  by  words  of  admi- 
ration ;  for  in  the  prologue  he  used  the  lines  frequently 
quoted, — 

"Shakspeare's  magic  could  not  copied  be: 
Within  that  circle  none  durst  walk  but  he. 

But  the  sincerity  of  these  words  is  scarcely  to  be  re- 
conciled with  the  ill-judged  work  they  are  prefaced  to, 
of  which  it  has  been  well  said  that  not  only  "not  one 
additional  beauty  has  been  inserted,  not  one  felicitous 
hint  improved,  but  the  profound  skill  and  knowledge  of 
nature,  for  which  the  original  has  been  justly  praised,  has 
been  lost  sight  of  by  the  improvers,  who  have  stripped  the 
spiritual  creation  of  Shakspeare  of  its  sky-tinctured  robes, 
and  stifled  the  wild  harmony  of  its  notes,  in  order  that 


CHARACTER   OF    DRYDEN'S    AUDIENCES.  2S7 


they  might  deck  it  in  the  artificial  finery  and  bestow  on 
it  the  conventional  manners  of  their  grosser  times  and 
their  degraded  theatre." 

Sir  Walter  Scott  has,  with  great  truth,  observed  "  how 
much  the  character  and  style  of  Shakspeare's  and  Dry- 
den's  dramas  were  influenced  by  the  manners  of  the 
respective  ages  in  which  they  lived  and  the  different  au- 
diences they  were  addressed  to.  The  poor,  small  theatres 
in  which  Shakspeare's  and  Jonson's  plays  were  repre- 
sented were  filled  with  spectators  who,  though  of  the 
middle  ranks,  were  probably  worse  educated  than  our 
more  vulgar;  but  they  came  prepared  with  a  tribute  of 
tears  and  laughter  to  bursts  of  passion  or  effusions  of  wit, 
though  incapable  of  estimating  the  beauties  derived  from 
the  gradual  development  of  a  story,  well-maintained 
characters,  well-arranged  incidents,  and  the  minute  beau- 
ties of  language.  Dryden,  on  the  other  hand,  wrote 
what  was  to  pass  before  the  judgment  of  a  monarch  and 
his  courtiers,  professed  judges  of  dramatic  criticism,  and 
a  formidable  band  of  town  critics.  Art,  therefore,  was 
not  only  a  requisite  qualification,  but  the  principal  attri- 
bute, of  the  dramatic  poet.  An  exhibition  of  nature  in 
the  strength  of  her  wildest  energies,  as  in  'Lear'  and 
(  Othello,' — deep  emotion,  or  sweet  and  simple  pathos, — 
would  have  found  no  correspondent  feeling  in  the  bosoms 
of  the  selfish,  the  witty,  the  affected,  and  the  critical 
audiences  who  preferred  the  ingenious,  romantic,  and 
polished :"  and,  therefore,  Scott  reasonably  questions 
whether  the  age  of  Charles  II.  would  have  borne  the 
introduction  of  Othello  or  Falstaff. 

The  miserable  vassalage  of  Dryden  to  the  theatre  at 
last  began  at  once  to  irritate  and  depress  him ;  for  he 


LECTURE    EIGHTH. 


had  a  spirit  which,  if  not  elevated  enough  to  save  his 
talents  from  unworthy  pursuits,  did  yet  sooner  or  later 
awaken  the  painful  sense  of  self-degradation.  "  I  desire," 
said  he,  "  to  be  no  longer  the  Sisyphus  of  the  stage, — to 
roll  up  a  stone  with  endless  labour,  which,  to  follow 
the  proverb,  gathers  no  moss,  and  which  is  perpetually 
falling  down  again." 

The  ambition  of  an  heroic  poem  was  flitting  across  his 
mind.  But  from  this  he  was  called  away  to  a  different 
service ;  and  it  is  vain  to  speculate  what  an  epic  poem 
from  the  pen  of  Dryden  might  have  been.  I  can  see 
little  reason  to  regret  that  he  was  diverted  from  the 
attempt ;  for  his  imagination,  with  all  its  power  in  certain 
departments,  was  hardly  capable  of  a  long-sustained  and 
requisite  majesty.  He  was  now  to  enlarge  the  domain 
of  English  poetry  by  the  production  of  the  most  nervous 
political  satire  in  the  language.  When  the  inquiry  is 
made  as  to  the  ground  of  Dryden's  poetical  fame,  he  is 
found  to  be  one  of  the  poets  whose  reputation  is  not  at 
once  justified  by  a  reference  to  any  one  chief  production. 
It  probably  rests  principally  upon  his  great  satire, — the 
poem  of  "Absalom  and  Achitophel."  The  reign  of  Charles 
II.  was  a  reign  of  political  intrigue, — an  effect  or  one 
form  of  its  corruption.  It  was  a  period  of  plot  and 
cabal,  busy  with  the  present  and  still  busier  with  the 
future, — the  question  of  the  succession.  It  would  con- 
sume more  time  than  is  at  my  command  to  recall  the 
state  of  things  which  Dryden  took  as  the  occasion  of  his 
poem.  It  was  levelled  against  the  scheme  of  Shaftes- 
bury  and  his  adherents  to  set  aside  the  heir-presumptive 
to  the  throne  and  advance  the  interests  of  the  king's 
natural  son, — the  unfortunate  Duke  of  Monmouth.  Poli- 


THE    DUKE    OF    BUCKING  II  AM.  289 


tical  lampoons  and  satires  were  no  novelties  in  the  ephe- 
meral literature  of  England;  but  such  a  satire  as  Dry- 
den's  was  an  engine  of  destruction  such  as  had  not  been 
known  before.  It  was  like  some  of  the  weapons  which 
are  revolutionizing  modern  warfare,  contrasted  with  the 
bow  and  arrow  or  the  clumsy  matchlock  musket  of  olden 
times.  The  satire  of  Dryden  had  the  merit  of  striking 
high  as  well  as  strongly, — having,  however,  it  should  be 
added,  the  royal  encouragement  to  sanction  its  boldness, 
and  some  against  whom  it  was  levelled  having  fallen 
from  their  high  station.  The  poem  gave  its  author  op- 
portunity for  his  long-reserved  retribution  upon  one 
who  had  made  the  first  assault, — the  Duke  of  Bucking- 
ham,— the  satire  of  "  The  Kehearsal"  being  now  repaid 
in  a  few  lines,  into  which  was  compressed  sarcasm  a 
hundredfold  multiplied.  The  character  of  Zimri,  in 
which  he  represented  Buckingham,  was  considered  by 
the  author  himself  as  the  masterpiece  of  his  satire,  and 
his  own  comment  is  the  best  statement  of  the  admirable 
adroitness  of  the  attack  : — "  The  character  of  Zimri,  in 
my  'Absalom/  is,  in  my  opinion,  worth  the  whole  poem. 
It  is  not  bloody,  but  it  is  ridiculous  enough ;  and  he 
for  whom  it  was  intended  was  too  witty  to  resent  it  as 
an  injury.  If  I  had  railed,  I  might  have  suffered  for 
it  justly;  but  I  managed  my  own  work  more  happily, 
perhaps  more  dexterously.  I  avoided  the  mention  of 
great  crimes,  and  applied  myself  to  the  representing  of 
blind  sides  and  little  extravagances,  to  which  the  wittier 
a  man  is  he  is  generally  the  more  obnoxious.  It  suc- 
ceeded as  I  wished ;  the  jest  went  round,  and  he  was 
laughed  at  in  his  turn  who  began  the  frolic  : — • 
VOL.  L  19 


290  LECTURE    EIGHTH. 


"  Some  of  their  chiefs  were  princes  of  the  land  : 
In  the  first  rank  of  these  did  Zimri  stand; 
A  man  so  various  that  he  seemed  to  be 
Not  one,  but  all  mankind's  epitome : 
Stiff  in  opinions,  always  in  the  wrong; 
Was  every  thing  by  starts,  and  nothing  long, 
But,  in  the  course  of  one  revolving  moon, 
Was  chemist,  fiddler,  statesman,  and  buffoon ; 
Then  all  for  women,  painting,  rhyming,  drinking, 
Besides  ten  thousand  freaks  that  died  in  thinking. 
Blest  madman,  who  could  every  hour  employ 
With  something  new  to  wish  or  to  enjoy! 
Railing  and  praising  were  his  usual  themes, 
And  both,  to  show  his  judgment,  in  extremes, 
So  over-violent  or  over-civil, 
That  every  man  with  him  was  god  or  devil. 
In  squandering  wealth  was  his  peculiar  art 
Nothing  went  unrewarded  but  desert. 
Beggared  by  fools,  whom  still  he  found  too  late, 
He  had  his  jest,  and  they  had  his  estate; 
He  laughed  himself  from  court,  then  sought  relief 
By  forming  parties,  but  could  ne'er  be  chief." 


The  finest  skill  of  the  satirist  was  shown  in  his  choice 
of  the  vulnerable  points  of  character.  Buckingham  was 
a  cankered  profligate,  casehardened  in  sensuality,  with 
every  moral  feeling  literally  dead ;  and,  therefore,  if  the 
satire  had  consisted  of  invective  of  his  immorality,  or 
exposure  of  what  was  already  notorious, — his  debauchery 
and  vice, — it  would  have  trickled  off  like  drops  of  water 
on  an  oiled  surface;  but,  as  it  was,  it  struck  him, 
indurated  as  he  was,  like  a  shower  of  molten  lead. 
Dryden  well  knew  how  encased  his  adversary  was  in  the 
armour  of  a  moral  torpor;  but  he  detected  the  joints 
of  that  armour,  and  there  found  space  to  thrust  with 
his  keen  sword  a  desperate  wound. 


LITERARY    LARCENY.  291 


The  grasp  of  Dryden's  satire  seized  .on  some  of  his 
luckless  contemporaries  in  authorship, — his  small  rivals 
in  poetry, —  who  have  gained  a  sinister  immortality, 
owing  all  their  fame  to  the  stamp  he  put  upon  them, 
— such  as  Shadwell  and  poor  Settle,  who  have  come 
down  to  posterity  in  these  lines : — 

"  Doeg,  though  without  knowing  how  or  why, 
Made  still  a  blundering  kind  of  melody ; 
Spurred  boldly  on,  and  dashed  through  thick  and  thin, 
Through  sense  and  nonsense,  never  out  nor  in  ; 
Free  from  all  meaning,  whether  good  or  bad, 
And,  in  one  word,  heroically  mad. 
He  was  too  warm  on  picking-work  to  dwell, 
But  fagoted  his  notions  as  they  fell, 
And,  if  they  rhymed  and  rattled,  all  was  well." 

I  cannot  here  omit  noticing  that  a  very  wretched  con- 
dition of  literary  society  existed  in  Dryden's  time;  for 
there  was  a  multitude  of  writers,  many  of  them  mere  scrib- 
blers and  versifiers,  full  of  pretensions  and  empty  of  every 
manly  principle  and  generous  feeling, — mean,  mercenary, 
and  stupid,  forever  on  the  alert  to  take  unfair  advantage 
of  a  fellow-labourer.  When  Dryden  meditated  an  epic 
poem,  he  was  carefully  mysterious  as  to  the  intended 
subject  of  it;  for  what  reason,  do  you  suppose?  Why, 
from  the  fear  that  it  would  be  immediately  seized  and 
appropriated  by  some  of  the  countless  scribblers,  and 
thus  his  design  be  forestalled  by  this  curious  species  of 
literary  larceny.  How  melancholy  a  contrast  is  this  to 
that  hearty  and  open-hearted  intercourse  which  pre- 
vailed among  the  distinguished  dramatic  contempo- 
raries of  Shakspeare,  —  those  frank  and  happy  festi- 
vities at  the  Mermaid  Tavern,  the  tradition  of  which 


292  LECTURE    EIGHTH. 


has  been  kept  alive,  and  presents  to  our  fancy  the 
great  dramatist,  with  Ben  Jonson  and  Fletcher,  Beau- 
mont, Donne  and  Ford,  and  the  rest,  like  a  band 
of  brothers.  In  Dryden's  day  there  was  envy  and  jea- 
lousy and  malice,  great  and  small,  —  each  man's  im- 
pulse selfishness.  The  time  had  nearly  gone  by  for 
that  amiable,  fraternal  feeling  in  literature, —  the  joint 
authorship, —  such  as  carries  the  names  of  Beaumont 
and  Fletcher  inseparable  and  undistinguished  to  future 
generations. 

In  treating  the  powers  of  Dryden  as  a  writer  of  satire, 
let  me  briefly  notice  what  has  occurred  to  me  as  a  con- 
trast with  his  illustrious  predecessor,  Milton.  Like  Dry- 
den,  Milton  was  involved  in  strife  with  men  of  the  world 
and  of  letters,  politicians  and  authors ;  he  too  had 
occasion  for  satire.  But  for  that  he  deemed  "  the  vision 
and  the  faculty  divine"  too  sacred ;  and  he  poured 
forth  his  fierce  denunciations  and  rebukes  in  prose. 
Bitter  and  sometimes  coarse  and  vulgar  words,  which 
cannot  but  be  deplored,  broke  from  him,  but  never  in 
his  pure  and  majestic  poetry.  His  muse  was  too  sacred 
to  be  profaned  by  this  world's  angry  and  fleeting  pas- 
sions. It  is  only  over  the  stormy  temper  of  Milton's 
prose  that  one  of  his  most  enthusiastic  admirers  has  la- 
mented in  a  noble  sonnet.  The  lines  are  from  an  ardent 
lover  of  genius, —  himself  a  man  of  genius, —  the  late 
Sir  Egerton  Brydges  : — 

"Not  Milton's  holy  genius  could  secure 
In  life  his  name  from  insult  and  from  scorn, 
And  taunts  of  indignation,  foul  as  fall 
Upon  the  vilest  tribe  of  human  kind ! 


THE    HIND    AND    TITE    PANTHER. 


Nor  yet  untainted  could  his  heart  endure 

The  calumnies  his  patience  should  have  borne ; 

For  words  revengeful  started  at  his  call, 

And  blotted  the  effulgence  of  his  mind. 

But,  oh  !  how  frail  the  noblest  soul  of  man 

Not  o'er  aggressive  blame  the  bard  arose  ; 

Ills  monarch's  deeds  'twas  his  with  spleen  to  scan, 

And  on  his  reign  the  gates  of  mercy  close. 

He  had  a  hero's  courage ;  but,  too  stern, 

He  could  not  soft  submission's  dictates  learn. 

I  must  hasten  on  from  the  satirical  portion  of 
Dryden's  authorship,  to  notice,  very  briefly,  some  of  his 
argumentative  poems, — a  species  of  poetry  especially 
illustrating  the  two  prime  qualities  of  his  poetry, — the 
power  of  reasoning  in  verse  and  a  compressed  vigour 
of  style.  Immediately  after  the  accession  of  James  II., 
when  that  prince's  design  of  reconciling  England  to  the 
Church  of  Rome  became  apparent,  Dryden,  at  a  time 
most  suspicious  for  his  sincerity,  suddenly  declared  him- 
self a  convert  to  Popery,  and  gave  to  his  new  alliance 
the  allegorical  poem  "  The  Hind  and  the  Panther,"  the 
longest  of  his  original  poems.  The  fable  is  fanciful,  per- 
haps somewhat  fantastic,  in  the  device  of  conveying  an 
elaborate  theological  controversy,  as  some  simple  moral 
is  inculcated  in  Esop's  little  parables.  It  has  been 
remarked  of  Dryden  that  he  reasoned  better  in  verse 
than  in  prose.  In  this  poem  the  reasoning  is  acute, 
with  an  intermixture  of  wit  and  the  best  flow  of  his 
versification.  It  is  a  statement,  probably  to  their  full 
advantage,  of  the  arguments  employed  in  favour  of  the 
infallibility  of  Romanism  against  an  unsteady  and  ultra 
Protestantism.  The  hind,  an  immaculate  and  unoffend- 
ing animal,  was,  to  the  fancy  of  the  proselyte,  a  type 


294  LECTURE    EIGHTH. 


of  the  purity  and  gentleness  of  the  Church  of  Home ; 
the  panther,  a  strong  and  beautiful  but  spotted  beast, 
is  the  Church  of  England ;  and  various  other  beasts  are 
representatives  of  different  sects, —  the  quaking  hare, 
for  instance,  being  the  type  of  that  worthy  Society  in 
which  the  poet  finds  naught  else  to  censure  but  their 
scruples  as  to  war  and  oaths.  But  the  associates  of  his 
early  days,  the  Presbyterians,  find  less  mercy  at  the  poet's 
hands  j  for  their  image  "  is  a  gaunt  and  hungry  wolf, 
who  pricks  up  his  predestinating  ears."  While  it  is 
wiser,  as  well  as  more  charitable,  neither  to  condemn 
Dryden's  adoption  of  Koman  Catholic  tenets  for  insin- 
cerity, nor  to  ascribe  it  to  sordid  motives,  it  should  be 
understood  that  it  was  not  a  conversion  from  any  pre- 
vious well-settled  creed,  but  the  movement  of  a  mind 
which  as  yet  had  taken  little  heed  to  its  hereafter.  He 
found  himself  growing  old,  many  precious  years  misspent 
in  worthless,  thankless,  and  dangerous  pursuits,  in  the 
service  and  in  the  society  of  the  dissolute  and  unprinci- 
pled, making  sport  for  them,  and  displaying  his  God- 
given  strength  in  literary  gladiatorship ;  after  a  life 
busied  in  the  thickest  of  the  throng  of  a  faithless  gene- 
ration, he  began  at  last  to  have  misgivings,  and  to  feel, 
in  the  words  of  a  truly  moral  poet  who  had  gone  before 
him, — 

"  That,  unless  above  himself  he  can 
Erect  himself,  how  poor  a  thing  is  man  !" 

He  witnessed  the  ecclesiastical  ferment  of  his  times, — 
affairs  of  church  entangled  with  affairs  of  state, — and  his 
wearied  and  awakened  spirit  hastened  from  the  apathy  or 
restlessness  of  skepticism  into  the  repose  of  absolute 


THE  HIND  AND  THE  PANTHER.         295 


ecclesiastical  infallibility.  The  whole  course  of  the  argu- 
ment, in  the  poem,  shows  this,  even  if  it  were  not  pretty 
clearly  avowed : — 

"  My  thoughtless  youth  was  winged  with  vain  desires  ; 
My  manhood,  long  misled  by  wandering  fires, 
Followed  false  lights  ;  and  when  their  glimpse  was  gone 
My  pride  struck  out  new  sparkles  of  its  own. 
Such  was  I,  such  by  nature  still  I  am; 
Be  thine  the  glory,  and  be  mine  the  shame ! 
Good  life  be  now  my  task:  my  doubts  are  done." 

The  opening  lines  of  the  "  Hind  and  the  Panther"  have 
been  reputed  among  the  most  musical  in  the  language, 
-1— an  opinion,  however,  entertained  by  those  who  have 
limited  their  sense  of  rhythm  chiefly  to  the  rhyme 
and  the  couplet : — 

"  A  milk-white  hind,  immortal  and  unchanged, 
Fed  on  the  lawns  and  in  the  forest  ranged; 
Without,  unspotted,  innocent  within, 
She  feared  no  danger,  for  she  knew  no  sin. 
Yet  had  she  oft  been  chased  with  horns  and  hounds, 
And  Scythian  shafts ;  and  many  wing6d  wounds 
Aimed  at  her  heart ;  was  often  forced  to  fly, 
And  doomed  to  death,  though  fated  not  to  die. 

*  *  *  *  * 

Panting  and  pensive,  now  she  ranged  alone 

And  wandered  in  the  kingdoms  once  her  own  ; 

The  common  hunt,  though  from  their  rage  restrained 

By  sovereign  power,  her  company  disdained ; 

Grinned  as  they  passed,  and  with  a  glaring  eye 

Gave  gloomy  signs  of  secret  enmity. 

'Tis  true,  she  bounded  by,  and  tripped  so  light, 

They  had  not  time  to  take  a  steady  sight; 

For  truth  has  such  a  face  and  such  a  mien 

As,  to  '  3  loved,  needs  only  to  be  seen." 


296  LECTURE    EIGHTH. 


"With  the  high  eulogies  on  Dryden's  odes,  espe- 
cially "  Alexander's  Feast/'  I  confess  myself  unable 
to  sympathize.  While  there  is  much  of  lyrical  ra- 
pidity in  it,  there  is  an  absence  of  lyrical  dignity  both 
in  thought  and  language :  it  has  somewhat  too  much 
of  the  bacchanalian  strain  and  too  much  of  the 
pettiness  of  a  mere  song  to  come  up  to  the  standard 
of  a  true  ode. 

In  the  course  of  this  lecture  I  have  had  occasion 
to  condemn  the  perversion  of  Dryden's  genius  to  low 
and  unhallowed  purposes.  There  was  not  only  the 
native  licentiousness  in  many  of  his  dramas,  but  a 
borrowed  iniquity  in  not  a  few  of  his  translations 
from  ancient  authors.  His  imagination  did  not,  like 
Milton's,  travel  into  Greek  and  Roman  poetry  to  feed 
on  the  purity  and  wisdom  to  be  found  there,  but 
gloated  over  its  corruptions  and  obscenity,  as  if  it  were 
better  to  go  to  the  Eternal  City  and  there  to  delve  in 
the  tombs  or  beneath  the  mouldering  arches  of  its  sewers 
than  to  stand  on  the  Capitoline  and  breathe  the  pure 
air  under  an  Italian  sky  and  blowing  across  the  seven 
hills  of  Rome. 

It  was  my  intention  to  have  attempted  to  draw  a 
contrast  between  the  old  age  of  Milton  and  Dryden, 
to  each  of  them  a  season  of  solitude  and  worldly  mis- 
fortune:—  Milton's  the  noble,  placid  closing  of  a  life 
spent  "ever  in  his  great  Taskmaster's  eye," — the 
very  darkness  of  blindness  sanctified  to  his  meditative 
spirit,  as  he  sublimely  imagined  it,  "  the  shadows 
of  heavenly  wings"  falling  upon  his  footsteps ; — Dryden's 
old  age  the  remnant  of  a  life  worn  out  in  his  Egyp- 
tian bondage,  embittered  by  the  memory  of  talents 


DRTDBN'fl    AGE.  297 


spent  in  the  thankless  services  of  the  meanest,  most 
sordid  and  grovelling  of  earthly  kings.  This  contrast 
was  in  my  thoughts;  but,  when  I  reflect  on  the  lines 
I  now  in  conclusion  read,  I  find  myself  disarmed  of  the 
intention  : — 

"If  joys  hereafter  must  be  purchased  here 

"With  loss  of  all  that  mortals  hold  so  dear, 

Then  welcome  infamy  and  public  shame, 

And,  last,  a  long  farewell  to  worldly  fame  ! 

'Tis  said  with  ease ;  but  oh,  how  hardly  tried 

By  haughty  souls  to  human  honour  tied ! 

Oh,  sharp  convulsive  pangs  of  agonizing  pride ! 

Down  then,  thou  rebel,  never  more  to  rise ! 

And  what  thou  didst,  and  dost,  so  dearly  prize, — 

That  fame,  that  darling  fame, — make  that  thy  sacrifice; 

'Tis  nothing  thou  hast  given ;  then  add  thy  tears 

For  a  long  race  of  unrepenting  years : 

'Tis  nothing  yet,  yet  all  thou  hast  to  give  ; 

Then  add  those  may-be  years  thou  hast  to  live : 

'Tis  nothing  still;  then  poor  and  naked  come; 

Thy  Father  will  receive  his  unthrift  home, 
And  thy  blest  Saviour's  blood  discharge  the  mighty  sum." 


LECTURE  IX. 

of  (Qntm  Qmt:    |)ojje; 


AND 


of  %  later  pmi  of  ilje  <Sigbimtl|j  (ftmtarg: 

The  Age  of  Pope  —  Change  in  the  social  relations  of  Authors  — 
Language  of  Dedications  —  Periodical  publications  —  State  of  Bri- 
tish parties  —  Lord  Mahon's  illustrations  of  the  age  —  Spirit  of  that 
age  —  Alexander  Pope  —  His  aspirations  —  His  want  of  sympathy  with 
his  predecessors  —  Imitation  of  French  poetry  —  Pope's  edition  of 
Shakspeare  —  Pope's  Pastorals  —  Corruptions  of  the  English  tongue 

—  John  Dennis's  Emendations  of  Shakspeare  —  Pope's  versification 

—  The  "Town"  —  The  Moonlight  Scene  in  the  Iliad  —  Pope  and 
Milton  contrasted  —  "  Eloisa  to  Abelard"  —  The  "  Kape  of  the  Lock"  — 
Pope's  Satires  —  The  "  Essay  on  Criticism"  —  The  "  Essay  on  Man" 

—  Lord  Bolingbroke  —  Orthodoxy  of  the  "Essay  on  Man"  —  His 
appreciation   of    Female    Character  —  William    Cowpcr  —  His    in- 
sanity —  "The  Task"—  "John   Gilpin"—  "The    Dirge"—  "The 
Castaway"  —  "  Cowper's  Grave." 

THE  lecture  on  Dryden  has  brought  our  studies 
down  to  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century,  his  death 
having  its  date  in  the  year  1700.  A  literary  era  of 
great  brilliancy  soon  followed  in  the  early  years  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  —  the  age  of  Queen  Anne,  as  it  has 
been  styled,  —  of  the  poetry  of  which  Pope  stands,  by 
universal  admission,  the  representative  —  enjoying  very 

293 


THE    AGE    OF    POPE. 


much  the  same  exclusive  supremacy  as  had  been  attained 
by  his  immediate  predecessor,  Dryden,  in  his  days.  The 
age  has  its  distinctive  traits,  political,  moral,  and  social, 
affecting  its  literature;  and  Pope  lived  in  close  and 
strong  sympathy  with  the  times.  He  was,  though  de- 
voted to  the  prime  pursuit  of  literary  fame,  intimately 
associated  with  the  actors  and  the  scenes  of  public  life. 
His  reputation  was  speedy  and  brilliant.  The  real  worth 
of  it  has  been  much  discussed  within  the  last  few  years, 
— a  discussion,  however,  in  which,  except  with  a  few 
ultraists,  there  is  less  real  difference  of  opinion  than  zeal 
of  controversy. 

.Before  entering  upon  any  statement  of  these  opinions, 
I  wish  to  notice  a  change  which,  at  this  time,  was  taking 
place  in  the  social  relations  of  authors, — their  position  in 
the  community.  The  condition  of  literature  has  in  dif- 
ferent moods  of  society,  by  this  consideration,  been 
materially  controlled,  taking  a  character  from  outward 
agencies.  In  the  earlier  ages  of  English  authorship,  the 
poets,  when  seeking  the  favour  and  countenance  of  men 
of  rank,  conciliated  their  patronage  by  tributes  which 
were  no  less  honourable  to  him  that  gave  than  to  him 
who  received  ;  for  the  language  of  dedication  was  a  manly 
language,  wholly  free  from  servility.  What,  for  instance, 
could  be  finer  than  the  magnificent  series  of  dedications 
of  Spenser's  "  Fairy  Queen," — the  affectionate  and  duti- 
ful homage  of  a  heart  —  a  true  poet's  heart  —  forever 
seeking  the  good  and  the  honourable  and  the  beautiful, 
wherever  his  imagination  dwelt  ?  The  poet  and  the  man 
of  true  nobility  appear  not  to  have  been  separated  by 
any  strongly-marked  line  of  social  demarcation :  there 
was  equal  and  honourable  intimacy.  Coming  down  to  a 


3:0  LECTURE    NINTH. 


later  period,  writers  are  seen  pitiably  fawning  upon  the 
great,  the  rich,  and  the  powerful;  an  adulation  poi- 
sonous to  the  love  of  truth  and  independence  becomes 
a  deep-seated  and  wide-spread  disease.  The  boundless 
extravagance  of  Dryden's  flattery  is  one  of  the  moral 
blots  upon  his  memory.  What  was  a  poet's  function, 
in  that  sensual  generation,  but  to  feed  an  impure  and 
palsied  taste,  forever  demanding  stronger  and  stronger 
stimulants  ?  His  position  had  scarce  more  of  moral  ele- 
vation than  that  of  a  court  buffoon,  rising  higher  only 
when  called  to  render  a  vassal's  service  in  some  fugitive 
quarrel  of  his  master's,  and  to  provide  weapons  from  the 
arsenal  of  poetic  satire.  A  better  state  of  things  was 
brought  about  in  the  succeeding  period.  The  press  was 
beginning  to  acquire  an  influence  over  public  opinion 
which  greatly  affected  the  circumstances  of  men  who 
were  competent  to  write.  The  introduction  of  periodical 
publications  may  be  referred  to  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne ; 
and  political  leaders  soon  felt  how  great  must  be  the 
sway  upon  public  measures,  and  the  policy  of  the  two 
great  parties,  of  discussion  thus  circulated.  It  has  been 
well  remarked,  in  reference  to  the  fact  of  Lord  Boliug- 
broke  and  the  Lord-Chancellor  Cowper  having  contri- 
buted to  certain  periodical  publications,  that  two  such 
statesmen,  taking  such  a  course,  must  have  perceived 
the  full  extent  of  this  influence.  The  power  of  a  party- 
press  was  realized,  and  Whigs  and  Tories,  Ministry 
and  Opposition,  rallied  men  of  letters  in  their  respective 
ranks.  The  man  of  letters,  of  course,  rose  in  estimation ; 
his  social  position  was  a  better  one.  His  attitude  was 
not  indeed  as  advantageous — not  as  propitious,  I  mean — 
to  the  genial  activity  of  his  powers,  as  that  which  ex- 


LORD    MAIION'S    REMARKS    ON    THE    AGE.          SOI 


isted  under  the  affectionate,  generous,  and  uncalculating 
relation  between  the  early  poets  and  their  patrons  and 
friends.  Far  less  is  it  to  be  compared  with  that  lofty  in- 
dependence maintained  by  Milton;  but  assuredly  far  better 
than  such  a  state  of  things  as  degraded  most  of  the 
authors  whose  misfortune  it  was  to  have  their  lot  cast 
under  the  dominion  of  the  later  Stuart  kings.  The 
period  now  under  review  was  a  palmy  one  for  men  who 
held  a  pen  of  power.  This  was  a  new  condition  qf  Eng- 
lish literature,  arising  from  the  state  of  British  parties 
and  the  expansion  of  the  periodical  press.  It  has  been 
well  illustrated  by  Lord  Mahon  in  his  agreeable  history 
of.  that  period  : — "  During  the  reigns  of  William,  of 
Anne,  and  of  George  L,  till  1721,  when  "Walpole  became 
prime  minister,  the  Whigs  and  Tories  vied  with  each 
other  in  the  encouragement  of  learned  and  literary 
men.  Whenever  a  writer  showed  signs  of  genius,  either 
party  to  which  his  principles  might  incline  him  was  eager 
to  hail  him  as  a  friend.  The  most  distinguished  so- 
ciety and  the  most  favourable  opportunities  were  thrown 
open  to  him.  Pla.ces  and  pensions  were  showered  down 
in  lavish  profusion  :  those  who  wished  only  to  pursue 
their  studies  had  the  means  afforded  them  for  learned 
leisure,  while  more  ambitious  spirits  were  pushed  forward 
in  Parliament  or  diplomacy.  In  short,  though  the  sove- 
reign was  never  an  Augustus,  every  minister  was  a  Mae- 
ceuas.  Newton  became  Master  of  the  Mint,  Locke  was  a 
commissioner  of  appeals,  Steele  was  a  commissioner  of 
stamps,  Stepney,  Prior,  and  Gay  were  employed  in  lucra- 
tive and  important  embassies.  It  was  a  slight  piece  of 
humour  at  his  outset,  and,  at  his  introduction,  the  '  City 
and  Country  Mouse/  that  brought  forth  a  mountain  vf 


302  LECTURE    NINTH. 


honours  to  Montague,  afterwards  Earl  of  Halifax  and 
First  Lord  of  the  Treasury.  When  Parnell  first  came  to 
court,  Lord-Treasurer  Oxford  passed  through  the  crowd  of 
nobles,  leaving  them  all  unnoticed,  to  greet  and  welcome 
the  poet.  '  I  value  myself/  says  Swift,  '  upon  making 
the  ministry  desire  to  be  acquainted  with  Parnell,  and 
not  Parnell  with  the  ministry.'  Swift  himself  became 
Dean  of  St.  Patrick's,  and  but  for  the  queen's  dislike 
would  have  been  Bishop  of  Hereford.  Pope,  as  a 
Roman  Catholic,  was  debarred  from  all  places  of  honour 
or  emolument ;  yet  Secretary  Craggs  offered  him  a  pen- 
sion of  £300  a  year,  not  to  be  known  by  the  public, 
and  to  be  paid  from  the  secret-service  money.  In  1714, 
General  Stanhope  carried  a  bill  providing  a  most  liberal 
reward  for  the  discovery  of  the  longitude ;  Addison  be- 
came secretary  of  state  j  Tickell  was  secretary  in  Ireland  ; 
several  rich  sinecures  were  bestowed  on  Congreve,  and 
Howe,  and  Hughes,  and  Ambrose  Phillips." 

It  is  necessary  to  be  cautious,  lest  we  conclude  too 
hastily  that  the  moral  improvement  of  men  of  letters 
kept  pace  with  their  social  improvement.  Their  eleva- 
tion in  society  in  consequence  of  the  spread  of  political 
literature  had  indeed  brought  with  it  a  certain  kind  of 
independence,  which  secured  to  them  a  certain  dignity  in 
public  estimation;  but  it  seems  to  me  that  they  were  too 
much  entangled  in  associations  alien  to  a  pure  and  elevated 
literature.  Even  with  that  increased  independence,  there 
was  still  preserved  a  system  of  patronage  such  as  gave  to 
the  Earl  of  Halifax  the  reputation  of  the  Maecenas  of 
the  age,  and  to  which  authors  found  it  expedient  to  pay 
court.  These  were  influences  not  propitious  to  the  higher 
aspirations  of  genius. 


ALEXANDER    POPE.  303 


The  age  of  Queen  Anne  was  an  age  distinguished  for  its 
courtly  refinement,  in  comparison  at  least  with  the  grossness 
which  had  been  so  predominant  a  few  years  before.  The 
unclean  spirit  had  gone  out,  but  it  walked  in  dry  places; 
during  the  early  reigns  of  the  eighteenth  century,  England 
seems  to  have  been  in  the  condition  of  a  relapse.  There 
was  a  heartlessness  in  the  nation,  in  all  its  leading  classes, 
in  the  Church,  in  the  State,  and  among  its  writers.  The 
lofty  character  of  the  statesman  was  lowered  to  that  of 
the  politician,  and  the  inspired  bard  became  chiefly  stu- 
dious of  a  polished  diction  and  a  nicely-balanced  verse. 
The  great  political  parties  of  a  former  age  had  dwindled 
into  tangled  factions.  Venality  had  become  a  prevalent 
vice,  and  the  current  of  public  affairs  was  stirred  less  by 
the  agitation  of  deep  principles  than  by  petty  intrigues. 
Men  had  lost  their  magnanimity;  and  in  its  stead  they 
trusted  to  small  expedients  and  large  pretensions.  Ascend- 
ancy was  held  by  wits  and  freethinkers  and  shallow 
philosophers. 

After  these  general  notices  of  the  spirit  of  those  times, 
it  is  my  purpose  to  look  at  its  influence  upon  English 
poetry,  as  it  may  be  traced  in  the  poems  of  its  repre- 
sentative during  almost  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth 
century, — Alexander  Pope. 

Intimately  as  Pope  was  associated  with  men  in  promi- 
nent and  active  public  life,  his  career  was  essentially  a 
literary  one.  The  cause  to  which  he  devoted  all  his 
cares  and  labours  was  the  acquisition  and  guardianship 
of  his  reputation  as  an  author.  Sir  "Walter  Scott  has 
pointed  out  the  striking  contrast  in  this  particular  between 
Pope  and  his  robust-minded  friend,  Dean  Swift,  who 
seems  to  have  disdained  the  character  of  a  mere  man  of 


304  LECTURE     NINTH. 


letters,  and  to  have  been  careless  of  his  works  beyond 
their  mere  occasional  use.  Scott  himself  had  a  touch  of 
Swift's  character  in  this  particular,  and  has  therefore 
pointedly  adverted  to  what  he  regarded  as  a  weakness  in 
Pope's  moral  and  intellectual  constitution. 

"Pope's  character  and  habits/'  he  remarks,  "were  ex- 
clusively literary,  with  all  the  hopes,  fears,  and  failings 
which  are  attached  to  that  feverish  occupation, — a  restless 
pursuit  of  poetical  fame.  Without  domestic  society  or 
near  relations,  separated  by  weak  health  and  personal  dis- 
advantages from  the  gay;  by  fineness  of  mind  and  lettered 
indolence  from  the  busy  part  of  mankind,  surrounded 
only  by  a  few  friends  who  valued  those  gifts,  in  which  he 
excelled,  Pope's  whole  hopes,  wishes,  and  fears  were 
centered  in  his  literary  reputation.  To  extend  his  fame 
he  laboured  indirectly  as  well  as  directly,  and  to  defend 
it  from  the  slightest  attack  was  his  daily  and  nightly 
anxiety.  Hence  the  restless  impatience  which  that  dis- 
tinguished author  displayed  under  the  libels  of  dunces 
whom  he  ought  to  have  despised ;  and  hence,  too,  the 
venomed  severity  with  which  he  retorted  their  puny 
attacks." 

Now,  in  such  a  career  it  is  at  once  manifest  that  there 
is  an  absence  of  the  magnanimity  of  a  great  poet's  soul. 
The  highest  aspiration  of  Pope's  ambition  was  the  acqui- 
sition of  fame  at  the  hands  of  the  generation  he  was 
living  with.  He  was  surrounded  by  men  of  talents,  of 
wit  and  accomplishments,  men  of  the  world,  men  of  the 
town;  and  he  deemed  their  praises  all  that  a  poet  need 
desire.  Their  admiration  was  the  voucher  to  him  for  his 
fame.  He  does  not  seem  to  have  looked  above  or  beyond 
the  companionship  of  his  own  generation,  as  if  never 


TOPE'S    ASPIRATIONS.  305 


doubting  that  their  judgment  must  be  echoed  by  posterity. 
His  hopes  were  centered  in  the  approval  of  his  contempo- 
raries, and  he  bent  his  efforts  to  earn  a  speedy  popularity 
with  them.  It  has  been  nobly  said  of  Milton  that  "his 
soul  was  like  a  star,  and  dwelt  apart/'  An  imagination 
shining,  starlike,  brightly  and  loftily  would  have  pro- 
bably shone  in  vain  upon  the  generation  in  which  Pope's 
lot  was  cast.  Of  him  it  may  be  said  that  the  light  of 
his  genius  had  more  of  worldly  kindling :  it  dwelt  not 
apart,  but  glittered  nearly,  clearly,  and  gayly,  like  a  ball- 
room lamp. 

Pope's  aspirations  were  crowned  with  success  beyond 
all  parallel.  He  gained  during  his  lifetime,  and  there- 
fore for  his  own  personal  enjoyment,  a  wider  and  more 
brilliant  reputation  than  had  been  attained  by  any  English 
poet  who  had  preceded  him, — a  reputation  still  cherished 
in  the  constant  admiration  of  many  of  our  ciders,  who 
'find  in  his  well-turned  and  well-tuned  and  well-pointed 
lines  their  favourite  quotations.  It  is  my  duty  now  to 
endeavour  to  ascertain  how  that  reputation  was  acquired, 
and  to  measure  -its  real  height  apart  from  all  pre- 
possessions and  prejudices. 

Let  me  in  the  first  place  remark  that  Pope's  heart, 
whatever  professions  of  admiration  may  have  occasionally 
fallen  from  him,  was  not  with  any  of  his  most  illustrious 
predecessors.  His  path  was  a  continuation  of  that  which 
had  been  trod  by  Dryden.  The  process  begun  by  that 
poet,  of  giving  to  English  poetry  the  polish  of  French 
versification,  was  to  be  completed  by  Pope.  He  began 
his  career  of  authorship  under  the  persuasion  that  his 
country,  while  it  had  produced  several  great  poets,  had 
no  great  poet  that  was  correct;  and  to  supply  that  de- 
VOL.  i.  20 


306  LECTURE    NINTH. 


ficiency  was  his  study  and  the  aim  of  his  whole  course. 
Apart  from  Shakspeare,  whose  genius  was  a  law  to  itself, 
it  is  an  interesting  fact  that  each  of  the  great  poets  forti- 
fied his  powers  by  affectionate  study  of  the  imagination 
of  his  great  English  predecessors.  Spenser  has  told  of 
his  obligations  to  Chaucer,  "the  father"  of  our  poetry; 
and  Milton  was  the  student  of  both  Chaucer  and  Spenser. 
But  Dryden  and  Pope  looked  to  Continental  poetry,  with 
something  of  repugnance  to  the  insular  barbarism  of 
their  poetical  ancestry :  they  fashioned  their  imaginations 
after  the  French  models,  forgetting  that  in  thus  copying 
traits  which  were  natural  to  France  they  were  smoothing 
away  the  bold  and  distinctive  features  of  their  native 
poetry.  It  was  applying  to  the  fresh  and  ruddy  complex- 
ion of  the  English  Muse  cosmetics  and  artificial  colour. 
The  imitation  was  avowed  and  justified  by  Pope : — 

""We  conquered  France,  but  felt  our  captive's  charms; 
Her  arts  victorious  triumph'd  o'er  our  arms ; 
Britain  to  soft  refinement  less  a  foe, 
Wit  grew  polite,  and  numbers  learned  to  flow 
Waller  was  smooth  :  but  Dryden  taught  to  join 
The  varying  verse,  the  full,  resounding  line, 
The  long  majestic  march  and  energy  divine. 
Though  still  some  traces  of  our  rustic  vein 
And  splay-foot  verse  remained,  and  will  remain 
Late,  very  late,  correctness  grew  our  care, 
When  the  tired  nation  breathed  from  civil  war; 
Exact  Racine,  and  Corneille's  noble  fire 
Showed  us  that  France  had  something  to  admire. 
Not  but  the  tragic  spirit  was  our  own, 
And  full  in  Shakspeare,  fair  in  Otway,  shone ; 
But  Otway  failed  to  polish  or  refine, 
And  fluent  Shakspeare  scarce  effaced  a  line : 
E'en  copious  Dryden  wanted  or  forgot 
The  last  and  greatest  art, —  the  art  to  blot" 


POPE'S    VERSIFICATION.  307 


When  Pope  began  his  career,  the  field,  it  seems  to  me, 
was  open  to  the  ready  accomplishment  of  his  ambition ; 
for  the  best  and  earlier  English  poetry  had  no  more  place 
in  the  affections  of  his  contemporaries  than  in  his  own. 
How  low  must  have  been  their  appreciation  of  Shakspeare 
is  in  some  measure  shown  by  that  most  remarkable 
edition  of  the  great  dramatist's  works, — Pope's  edition, — 
in  which  he  introduced  throughout,  in  the  margin, 
certain  marks,  intended  to  point  out  what  he  called  the 
most  shining  passages.  There  were  many  men  who 
thought  like  Lord  Chesterfield,  who  said  that  he  was 
obliged  to  take  snuif  when  he  read  "  Paradise  Lost," — 
the  small  wit  of  which  remark  I  am  not  sure  that  I  dis- 
tinctly see ;  but  I  suppose  it  meant  that  he  needed  some 
stimulus  to  keep  him  awake  during  the  effort.  Pope 
showed  an  instinctive  knowledge  of  the  age  he  was 
writing  for  when  he  made  it  a  chief  object  to  give  to 
English  versification  a  polish  and  a  smoothness  surpass- 
ing what  had  been  before  attained, —  not,  indeed,  tran- 
scending the  harmony  to  be  often  found,  but  a  harmony 
of  unequalled  uniformity,  free  from  even  occasional 
harshness.  This  he  was  enabled  to  accomplish  partly 
by  elaborate  finish  and  partly  by  his  natural  endowment 
of  a  correct  ear.  Versification  had  been  a  spontaneous 
delight  in  childhood  with  him  :  he 

"  Lisped  in  numbers,  for  the  numbers  came." 

The  poet  introduced  himself  to  public  observation  by 
his  "  Pastorals."  These  poems  could  scarcely  be  read 
now  with  any  interest  even  by  a  zealous  admirer  of  Pope. 
They  had,  however,  a  success  that  fixed  the  character 
of  his  poetry.  The  public  ear  was  fascinated  with  the 


308  LECTURE     NINTH. 


unbroken  flow  of  the  verse  and  the  unwonted  refinement 
of  the  diction. 

This  refining  process  has  influenced  so  much  of  Eng- 
lish writing  that  I  wish  to  notice  the  changes  style 
underwent  during  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth 
and  early  part  of  the  eighteenth  century.  In  the  years 
of  the  Kestoration,  the  language  lost  much  of  its  purity 
and  its  native  tone  by  two  opposite  corruptions:  one, 
the  adoption  of  very  easy  and  vulgarly-colloquial  expres- 
sions,—  an  infection  which  touched  even  some  of  the 
most  celebrated  pulpit  oratory,  a  freedom  and  coarseness 
of  diction  denominated  slang,  a  word  belonging  to  the 
very  vocabulary  it  denotes.  The  other  corruption  was 
owing  to  a  mistaken  notion  of  refinement, — a  squeamish- 
ness  in  using  native  strong  idiomatic  English  forms  of 
expression.  Dryden  gave  a  sanction  to  this  affectation 
of  a  misplaced  precision,  which  I  may  exemplify  by 
mentioning  his  determination  to  correct  as  faulty  and 
inelegant  his  use  of  the  Anglicism  of  ending  a  sentence 
with  a  preposition ;  changing,  for  example,  the  phrase 
"I  cannot  think  so  contemptibly  of  the  age  I  live  in" 
into  "  the  age  in  which  I  live." 

The  poets  and  the  critics  of  this  period  manifestly 
prided  themselves  on  superior  skill  in  poetic  art,  and 
disparaged  their  greater  predecessors  for  a  semi-barbarian 
rudeness.  This  was  Dryden's  habit  of  opinion ;  it  was 
Pope's;  and,  to  show  how  general  it  was,  one  of  the 
chief  victims  of  Pope's  satire  in  the  "Dunciad,"  John 
Dennis,  gave  his  care  to  refining  what  he  thought  un- 
sightly irregularities  in  Shakspeare's  drama.  The  his- 
torical play  of  "  Coriolanus"  came  forth  doubly  refined 
under  the  process,  presenting  a  feebleness  of  paraphrase 


DENNIS'S    EMENDATIONS    OF    SIIAKSPEARE. 


wofully  contrasted  with  the  original.  "  The  icicle  that 
hangs  on  Dian's  temple"  is  made  "  the  icicle  that  hangs 
on  the  temple  of  Diana." 

The  Roman's  fond  expression  of  constancy  to  his  wife, — 

"  That  kiss 

I  carried  from  thee,  dear,  and  my  true  lip 
Hath  virgined  it  e'er  since," — 

is    evaporated    in   these    more    polished    and    mawkish 

words : — 

"  That  kiss 

I  carried  from  my  love,  and  my  true  lip 
Hath  ever  since  preserved  it  like  a  virgin. 

And,  to  take  one  more  example,  who  would  recognise  in 
this  furbished  and  feeble  version, — 

"  This  boy,  that,  like  an  eagle  in  a  dovecote, 
Fluttered  a  thousand  Voices  in  Corioli, 
And  did  it  without  second  or  acquittance, 
Thus  sends  their  mighty  chief  to  mourn  in  hell," — 

who  could  recognise  the  natural  burst  of  mingled  triumph 
and  indignation  when  Coriolanus  is  taunted  with  the 
word  "  boy"  ? — 

"  Boy ! — False  hound ! 

If  you  have  writ  your  annals  true,  'tis  there, 
That,  like  an  eagle  in  a  dovecote,  I 
Fluttered  your  Voices  in  Corioli : 
Alone  I  did  it. — Boy  !" 

I  notice  this  propensity  to  give  a  high-wrought  polish 
both  to  diction  and  metre,  because,  while  it  was,  1 
doubt  not,  the  fashion  of  the  times,  no  one  gave  more 
pains  to  the  process  than  Pope.  His  versification  is 
entitled  to  all  praise  for  its  exquisite  smoothness  and 
beauty  of  sound,  though  limited  almost  entirely  to  one 


310  LECTURE    NINTH. 


species  of  verse,  in  which  he  displayed  his  skill  as  a 
inetrist.  The  couplet  which  of  all  others  is  said  to  have 
best  satisfied  his  own  ear  is  the  following,  in  the  "  Dun- 
ciad:"— 

"  Lo  !  where  Macotis  sleeps,  and  hardly  flows 
The  freezing  Tanais  through  a  waste  of  snows." 

The  pages  of  Pope  abound  also  in  felicitous  combinations 
of  words, — phrases  commended  to  the  memory  and  im- 
pressed there  by  their  beauty,  which  is  one  of  the  reasons 
his  lines  are  so  frequently  quoted.  It  would  be  scarcely 
possible  to  find  words  more  happily  chosen  and  more  aptly 
combined  than  in  his  well-known  expression, —  one 
among  many  of  the  same  description, — 

•"'  To  snatch  a  grace  beyond  the  reach  of  art" 

The  success  of  Pope's  early  poems  misled  him  into  a 
belief  which  could  not  fail  to  be  fatal  to  him  as  a  de- 
scriptive poet  of  external  nature.  He  found,  from  the 
reception  of  his  "  Pastorals,"  that  people  were  willing  to 
be  pleased  with  a  poetry  purporting  to  be  descriptive,  in 
which  there  was  in  truth  no  description  of  nature  either 
actual  or  imaginative.  The  greatest  of  the  poets  had 
been  dutiful  and  affectionate  in  the  study  of  nature;  and 
the  bounteous  recompense  was  that  nature  ministered  to 
them.  So  was  it  with  Chaucer,  Spenser,  and  Shakspearej 
and  with  Milton,  filling  the  storehouse  of  his  fancy  with 
treasures  that  were  to  last  during  the  famine  of  incurable 
blindness.  A  change  came  over  the  spirit  of  poetry 
under  the  dynasty  of  Dryden,  and  still  more  of  his 
follower — follower  in  time  and  in  poetic  theory — Pope. 
A  style  of  description  grew  fashionable  which  betrayed 
that  their  communion  with  nature  was  not  direct,  thought- 


THE    "TOWN."  311 


ful,  and  imaginative,  but  through  the  medium  of  books 
and  verbal  and  fantastic.  It  has  been  well  said  that 
"  when  Milton  lost  his  eyes  Poetry  lost  hers."  A  time 
followed  when  our  poets  ceased  to  commune  with  nature 
and  ceased  to  love  her,  and,  as  there  can  be  no  true 
knowledge  without  love,  ceased  therefore  to  know  any 
thing  about  her.  Man  again  became  all  in  all,  but  not 
the  ideal  human  nature  of  Greek  poetry  in  its  altitudes  of 
action  and  passion, — the  human  nature  of  what  was  called 
the  town,  with  all  its  pettinesses  and  hollownesses  and 
crookednesses  and  rottennesses.  The  great  business  and 
struggle  of  men  seemed  to  be  to  out-lie,  out-cheat,  and 
out-hector  each  other.  Our  poets  then  dwelt  in  Grub 
Street,  and,  to  judge  from  their  works,  seldom  left  their 
garrets,  save  to  go  to  the  coffee-house,  the  play-house, 
and  other  polluted  places.  Dryden  wrote  a  bombastic 
description  of  night,  from  which  one  might  suppose  that 
he  had  never  seen  night  except  by  candle-light.  He 
talked  of  "nature's  self  seeming  to  lie  dead;"  of  "the 
mountains  seeming  to  nod  their  drowsy  heads," — much 
as  Charles  II.  used  to  do  at  a  sermon; — and  of  "sleep- 
ing flowers  sweating  beneath  the  night-dews."  Yet  this 
was  extolled  by  Ryuier,  a  countryman  of  Shakspeare's, 
as  the  finest  description  of  night  ever  composed, —  an 
opinion  which  Johnson  quotes  without  expressing  any 
dissent,  telling  us,  moreover,  that  these  lines  were  oftener 
repeated  in  his  days  than  almost  any  other  of  Dryden's. 
What,  then,  must  have  been  the  knowledge  of  nature, 
and  what  the  feeling  for  it,  in  an  age  when  the  poetical 
imagery  which  the  readers  and  repeaters  of  poetry  were 
accustomed  to  associate  with  night,  was  nature's  lying 
dead,  mountains  nodding  their  drowsy  heads,  and  sleep- 


312  LECTURE    NINTH. 


ing  flowers  sweating  beneath  the  night-dews  ?  People  even 
learned  to  fancy  and  to  tell  one  another  that  all  this  was 
indeed  so.  As  it  is  the  wont  of  hollow  things  to  echo, 
whenever  a  poet  hit  on  a  striking  image  or  a  startling 
expression,  it  was  bandied  from  mouth  to  mouth.  Thus, 
"nodding  mountains"  became  a  stock  phrase,  a  piece  of 
falsetto,  which  passed  from  Dryden  to  Pope. 

This  once-celebrated  description  (and  I  have  seen  it 
quoted,  even  within  a  few  years  past,  as  an  example  of 
Dryden's  peculiar  felicity  in  describing  repose)  is  in  these 
vague,  inflated,  and  unmeaning  lines : — 

"All  things  are  hushed,  as  nature's  self  lay  dead; 
The  mountains  seem  to  nod  their  drowsy  head; 
The  little  birds  in  dreams  their  songs  repeat, 
And  sleeping  flowers  beneath  the  night-dews  sweat." 

This  passage  has  lost  its  celebrity ;  but  there  is  a  pas- 
sage of  Pope's  which  has  held  its  place  in  public  admira- 
tion much  longer, — his  translation  of  the  celebrated  moon- 
light scene  in  the  Iliad, — showing  an  equal  disregard  of 
the  most  obvious  appearances  of  nature;  for,  though  he 
had  Homer  to  guide  him,  the  lines  have  been  justly  con- 
demned as  throughout  false  and  contradictory : — 

"As  when  the  moon — refulgent  lamp  of  night — 
O'er  heaven's  clear  azure  spreads  her  sacred  light, 
When  not  a  breath  disturbs  the  deep  serene, 
And  not  a  cloud  o'ercasts  the  solemn  scene ; 
Around  her  throne  the  vivid  planets  roll, 
And  stars  unnumbered  gild  the  glowing  pole; 
O'er  the  dark  trees  a  yellower  verdure  shed, 
And  tipt  with  silver  evrey  mountain's  head : 
Then  shine  the  vales;  the  rocks  in  prospect  rise; 
A  flood  of  glory  bursts  from  all  the  skies; 
The  conscious  swains,  rejoicing  in  the  sight, 
Eye  the  blue  vault,  and  bless  the  useful  light." 


THE    MOONLIGHT    SCENE    IN    THE    ILIAD.         313 


"  Here,"  said  Mr.  Southey,  in  a  pithy  comment  on  this 
passage,  "are  the  planets  rolling  round  the  moon;  here 
is'  the  pole  gilt  and  glowing  with  stars;  here  are  trees 
made  yellow  and  mountains  tipped  with  silver  by  the  moon- 
light, and  here  is  the  whole  sky  in  a  flood  of  glory : — 
appearances  not  to  be  found  either  in  Homer  or  in  nature. 
Finally,  these  gilt  and  glowing  skies,  at  the  very  time  when 
they  are  thus  pouring  forth  a  flood  of  glory,  are  repre- 
sented as  a  blue  vault!  The  astronomy  in  these  lines 
would  not  appear  more  extraordinary  to  Dr.  Herschell 
than  the  imagery  to  every  person  who  has  observed  moon- 
light scenes."  "Strange,"  it  has  been  well  said,  too, — 
'f  strange  to  think  of  an  enthusiast,  as  may  have  been  the 
case  with  thousands,  reciting  these  verses  under  the  cope 
of  a  moonlight  sky,  without  having  his  raptures  in  the 
least  disturbed  by  a  suspicion  of  their  absurdity!"  I 
have  alluded  to  these  passages  to  show  how,  in  this  school 
of  poetry,  its  masters,  Dryden,  and,  perhaps  still  more, 
Pope,  could  bring  themselves  to  think  the  visible  universe 
as  of  little  consequence  to  a  poet.  Fidelity  to  nature — 
the  truthfulness  which  distinguished  the  elder  poets — 
was  banished  as  worthless,  and  fine  words  and  smooth 
verses  were  the  substitute. 

The  nature  that  Pope  loved  and  admired  was  such  an 
artificial  nature  as  he  had  formed  for  himself  in  his 
famous  grotto  at  Twickenham.  It  seems  to  me  typical  of 
his  poetry,  so  far  as  that  poetry  purported  to  be  descrip- 
tive; especially  when  I  fancy  him  seated  there  attired  in 
the  costume  of  Queen  Anne's  days,  laced  tightly  in  the 
stays  he  was  obliged  to  wear  on  account  of  the  weakness 
of  his  figure,  his  tie-wig  pushed  a  little  on  one  side,  as 
his  portrait  represents  him,  or  with  a  velvet  cap  on  his 


314  LECTURE     NINTH. 


head,  his  grotto  composed  of  marbles,  spars,  gems,  ores, 
and  minerals.  When  I  fancy  him  there  eating  sweet- 
meats, or  conversing  with  Lord  Bolingbroke,  catching  his 
philosophy  from  that  nobleman,  the  poet  thus  fancied 
seems  to  me  the  very  incarnation  of  his  poetry.  How 
contrasted,  let  me  add,  with  the  tradition  of  Milton's  per- 
sonal appearance,  equally  typical,  clad  in  simple  dress,  a 
gray  coarse  cloth  coat,  and  seated  at  the  door  of  his  resi- 
dence near  Moorgate,  in  warm,  sunny  weather,  to  enjoy 
the  fresh  air  or  the  affectionate  and  reverential  visit  of 
some  friend  of  simple  habits  of  life  like  his  own  !  In  his 
heart  a  strong  and  unadulterated  love  of  nature  always 
had  its  indwelling;  for,  when  old  and  blind,  all  that  was 
left  was  the  pure  enjoyment  of  the  fresh  air,  touching  his 
noble  brow  and  fanning  the  flowing  hair  that  was  parted 
on  it,  bringing  too,  no  doubt,  recollections  of  his  suburban 
rambles  and  the  happy  rural  home  at  Horton. 

But  Pope's  reputation  rests  less  at  the  present  day  on 
his  descriptive  poetry  than  upon  his  satires  and  his  moral 
poems,  besides  his  heroi-comical  poem,  the  "Rape  of  the 
Lock,"  and  the  "Eloisa  to  Abelard."  \u  the  latter  poem 
there  are  evidences  of  higher  efforts  of  imagination  than 
Pope  has  shown  in  any  other  of  his  poems;  but,  unfortu- 
nately, his  imagination  was  employed  upon  a  theme  of 
which  the  grossness  has  been  heightened  in  his  hands, 
notwithstanding  the  dazzling  veil  interposed  of  exquisitely- 
finished  verse.  Of  the  "Rape  of  the  Lock"  I  acknow- 
ledge my  inability  of  admiration.  It  always  seems  to  me 
a  piece  of  raillery  wonderfully  overwrought  and  with  very 
little  of  comic  force  under  its  heroic  cover.  I  can  enter 
most  heartily,  as  I  hope  to  be  able  to  show  you,  into  the 
enjoyment  of  Burus's  elfin  creations, — the  folks  that  Tarn 


POPE'S    SATIRES.  315 


O'Shanter  met  at  Kirk-Alloway, — or  in  Shakspeare's 
fairy  world,  the  realms  and  the  subjects  of  Oberon  and 
Titania,  Puck  and  the  other  merry  wanderers  of  the 
night  keeping  their  quaint  and  moonlight  revels,  follow- 
ing darkness  like  a  dream,  singing  fairy  songs,  and, 

"By  paved  fountain,  or  by  rushy  brook, 
Or  on  the  beached  margent  of  the  sea, 
Dancing  their  ringlets  to  the  whistling  wind." 

But,  as  for  the  ball-room  elves,  the  sylphs  of  the  "  Rape  of 
the  Lock,"  Pope's  Zephyrettas  and  Momentillas,  Brillantes 
and  Crispissas,  it  is  essential  artifice :  they  are  a  sort  of 
brocade-and-hooped  fairies;  there  is  no  nature,  no  life  in 
them. 

The  satirical  poems  of  Pope  show  great  powers  in  that 
department  of  poetry.  His  satire  is  a  weapon  of  greater 
keenness  and  polish  but  less  weight  than  Dryden's.  The 
famous  character  of  Addison  is  an  admirable  specimen  of 
Pope's  best  satirical  discrimination  and  skill : — 

"  Peace  to  all  such !     But  were  there  one  whose  fires 
True  genius  kindles  arid  fair  fame  inspires, 
Blessed  with  each  talent  and  each  art  to  please, 
And  born  to  write,  converse,  and  live  with  ease, — 
Should  such  a  man,  too  fond  to  rule  alone, 
Bear,  like  the  Turk,  no  brother  near  the  throne ; 
View  him  with  scornful  yet  with  jealous  eyes, 
And  hate  for  arts  that  caused  himsetf  to  rise; 
Damn  with  faint  praise,  assent  with  civil  leer, 
And,  without  sneering,  teach  the  rest  to  sneer; 
Willing  to  wound,  and  yet  afraid  to  strike ; 
First  hint  a  fault,  and  hesitate  dislike  ; 
Alike  reserved  to  blame  or  to  commend, — 
A  timorous  foe,  and  a  suspicious  friend; 
Dreading  e'en  fools,  by  flatterers  besieged, 
And  so  obliging  that  he  ne'er  obliged ; 


316  LECTURE    NINTH. 


Like  Cato,  gives  his  little  senate  laws, 
And  sits  attentive  to  his  own  applause ; 
While  wits  and  templars  every  sentence  raise, 
And  wonder  with  a  foolish  face  of  praise : — 
Who  but  must  laugh  if  such  a  man  there  be  ? 
Who  would  not  weep  if  Atticus  were  he  ?" 

This  passage  shows  Pope's  talent  for  satire  to  better 
advantage,  it  seems  to  rue,  than  any  of  his  bitter  and 
vehement  invectives  or  the  witty  sarcasm  which  abounds 
in  the  "Dunciad." 

The  reputation  of  Pope  has  been  considerable  as  a  phi- 
losophic and  moral  poet.  His  philosophic  poems  are  the 
"Essay  on  Criticism"  and  the  "Essay  on  Man,"  with  the 
supplementary  essays.  The  former  was  a  youthful  produc- 
tion with  but  a  small  proportion  of  imaginative  spirit, 
having  been  first  written  in  prose  and  then  translated  into 
verse.  It  is  a  poem  which  supplies  frequent  quotations  of 
commonplace  truisms  in  metre,  conveniently  remembered ; 
such  as 

"A  little  learning  is  a  dangerous  thing : 
Drink  deep,  or  taste  not  the  Pierian  spring." 

The  "Essay  on  Man"  is  a  more  elaborate  metaphysical 
poem,  with  a  high  design  and  a  comprehensive  scope, — a 
system  of  ethics  deduced  from  considerations  of  the 
nature  and  state  of  man  in  his  various  relations.  To 
criticize  the  execution  of  this  plan  and  measure  its  con- 
sistency with  Christian  philosophy  cannot  now  be 
attempted.  Let  me  only  remark,  I  find  it  impossible,  in 
reading  the  poem,  to  divest  rny  mind  of  the  recollection 
of  the  source  of  the  philosophical  views  to  which  Pope 
gave  the  popularity  of  verse.  By  whom  was  the  design 


LORD    BOLIMQBEOKE.  317 


of  the  poem  prompted?  by  whom  its  theory  and  argu- 
ments dictated?  to  whom  was  it  dedicated?  and  whose 
praises  are  interwoven  with  it  as  the  author's  "friend/' 
his  "genius,"  "master  of  the  poet  and  the  song,"  his 
"guide  and  philosopher"  ?  To  Henry  St.  John,  Viscount 
Boliugbroke  ?  And  who  and  what  was  Lord  Bolingbroke  ? 
He  was  one  whose  name  was  most  prominent  in  both  the 
literary  and  political  circles  of  society  during  the  reign 
of  Queen  Anne  and  the  first  of  the  Brunswick  race  of 
English  kings.  His  youth  had  been  severely  trained 
under  a  preceptor  whom  he  afterwards  sneeringly  styles 
a  puritanical  parson  who  made  one  hundred  and  nineteen 
sermons  on  the  119th  Psalm.  His  early  manhood  re- 
coiled into  the  excesses  of  a  libertine;  he  became  a 
skeptic,  priding  himself  upon  the  sufficiency  of  an  infidel 
philosophy;  and,  when  political  reverse  cast  him  down 
from  the  high  place  of  power  and  honours  into  exile  and 
disgrace,  he  boastfully  proclaimed  that  virtue  could  find  a 
home  on  any  soil.  But  his  philosophy  did  not  avail  him : 
he  pined  in  a  foreign  land,  a  miserable  outcast,  craving  his 
lost  influence  and  .station.  The  mind  of  Pope  dwelt  in  the 
shadow  of  Bolingbroke's.  Now,  how  could  it,  thus  over- 
shadowed, the  light  of  revelation  thus  intercepted  by  the 
dark  and  restless  leaves  of  the  poisonous  tree  of  a  faithless 
philosophy, — "philosophy  falsely  so  called," — how  could 
it  have  other  than  a  stinted  growth?  The  whole  body 
of  the  "Essay  on  Man"  was  Bolingbroke's;  and  Pope's 
function  was  to  give  it  the  outward  garb  of  verse, — to  give 
it  wings  to  fly  into  hearts  it  never  otherwise  would  have 
reached.  It  is  utterly  impossible  to  reconcile  the  notion 
of  Pope's  being  an  author  of  an  exalted  and  powerful 
genius,  with  the  mere  ministerial  relation  in  which  he 


318  LECTURE     NINTH. 


was  content  and  happy  to  stand  to  Bolingbroke,  and  such 
a  man  who  well  earned  the  epithet  given  in  Shakspeare 
to  an  earlier  one  of  the  same  name, — "the  cankered 
Bolingbroke."  The  poet  worshipped  the  philosopher  as 
his  genius : — yes,  but  unhappily  the  genius  was  but  a 
ministering  spirit  of  evil.  Like  Satan  close  at  the  ear  of 
Eve,  the  infidel  was  at  the  poet's  side, — 

"  Assaying  by  his  devilish  art  to  reach 
The  organs  of  his  fancy." 

When  the  consistency  of  the  reasoning  in  Pope's  poem 
with  Revelation  was  questioned,  I  know  that  strong 
men,  Warburton  among  them,  were  ready  to  indicate  its 
orthodoxy ;  but  I  greatly  fear  there  was  something  in  the 
constitution  of  Pope's  mind  which  fitted  it  for  the  recep- 
tion of  the  seeds  of  Bolingbroke's  philosophy.  How  far 
the  poet  was  a  dutiful  child  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  I  cannot  undertake  to  judge;  but  a  strange  kind 
of  faith  it  must  have  been  when  such  a  sentiment  as  this 
passed  between  him  and  his  noble  friend.  In  Boling- 
broke's elaborate  letter  to  Pope,  he  says,  "  You  quoted  to 
me  once,  with  great  applause,  an  apothegm : — '  Where 
mystery  begins,  religion  ends.'"  What  a  poor  thing 
would  religion  be  if  its  depths  were  shallows  to  be 
sounded  by  the  scant  line  of  such  philosophy  as  Boling- 
broke's !  It  is  just  to  add  that  Pope  did  not  himself 
realize  the  full  extent  of  the  principles  he  was  thus 
taught ;  and  I  can  well  believe  there  was  lurking  in 
Bolingbroke's  callous  heart  the  infidel  scorn  at  the  poet's 
deluded  innocence,  beholding  him  swallowing  the  poison 
unawares.  Whatever  interpretation  may  be  put  on  the 


ORTHODOXY    OF    THE    ESSAY    ON    MAN.  319 


poem  to  reconcile  it  with  Revelation,  certain  it  is  that  it 
contains  nothing  to  which  Bolingbroke,  infidel  as  he  was, 
could  not  have  given  his  whole  consent.  What  but  the 
deistical  fallacy  of  the  sufficiency  of  natural  religion,  as 
it  is  called,  and  the  equally  sophistical  sentiment  of  a 
spurious  liberality,  is  in  these  lines  ? — 

"  Slave  to  no  sect,  who  takes  no  private  road, 
But  looks  through  nature  up  to  nature's  God." 

Or,  again,  how  unsound  are  those  lines  so  often  quoted 
with  unthinking  approval ! — 


"  For  forms  of  government  let  fools  contest 
.         Whate'er  is  best  administered  is  best. 

For  modes  of  faith  let  senseless  zealots  fight ;      * 
He  can't  be  wrong  whose  life  is  in  the  right" 

As  if  the  administration  of  a  government  did  not  greatly 
depend  upon  its  form;  as  if  the  rectitude  of  life  did  not 
depend  on  its  faith. 

One  great  fault  in  the  constitution  of  Pope's  mind 
was  the  excess  of  a  dangerous  element : — the  proneness  to 
satire.  It  is  dangerous  in  any  mind, — man's  or  woman's, 
— the  love  of  saying  disagreeable  things,  the  small 
shafts  of  which  some  people  always  carry  their  quiver 
full, — the  tendency  to  criticize,  to  detect  faults;  it  is 
dangerous  above  all  to  the  poet,  for  it  lowers  the  tone  of 
his  enthusiasm,  by  drawing  his  thoughts  away  from  the 
grand  and  good  and  beautiful.  In  any  one — poet  or 
other — it  brings  its  own  penalty;  for  it  closes  at  last 
many  sources  of  pure  enjoyment,  sacrificing  the  happi- 
ness of  delight  to  the  poor  pleasure  of  critical  acuteness. 


320  LECTURE    NINTH. 


In  the  worst  moral  character  which  Shakspeare  has 
created,  he  has  made  the  disproportionate  excess  of  sati- 
rical temper  a  large  element.  "I  am  nothing,"  exclaims 
lago,  "  if  not  critical."  Throughout  Pope's  poems  runs 
an  almost  uninterrupted  vein  of  satire  in  some  of  its 
forms :  it  has  penetrated  even  the  epitaphs  he  has 
written.  He  scarcely  ever  touches  the  character  of  wo- 
man without  reproach, — some  expression  of  unmanly  con- 
tempt or  direct  insult.  How  different  from  that  lofty, 
chastened  sentiment  of  admiration  and  love  which 
breathes  on  the  pages  of  every  one  of  our  truly  great 
poets  !  In  this  as  in  other  respects,  what  men,  what 
perfect  gentlemen,  they  were !  I  say  this  not  by  way 
of  gallantry,  but  because  I  have  not  the  least  doubt  that 
it  is  an  element  in  the  true  poetic  character.  Observa- 
tion on  the  chief  English  poets  would  verify  it  as  a  fact; 
and,  if  there  was  time,  I  believe  I  could  state  the  theory 
of  it.  But,  passing  that  by,  Pope  seems  to  have  had  no 
correct  appreciation  of  female  character.  The  only  woman 
towards  whom  he  ever  entertained  any  thing  approach- 
ing a  tender  passion  was,  indeed,  more  of  a  man  than  a 
woman, — Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montague.  The  text  of 
his  celebrated  epistle  on  the  character  of  women  was, — 

"Most  women  have  no  characters  at  all," — 

a  piece  of  sarcasm  the  sting  of  which  has  been  ad- 
mirably extracted  by  one  who  was  as  full  of  gentleness 
of  heart  as  of  genius, — the  late  Mr.  Coleridge.  "  '  Most 
women  have  no  characters  at  all/  said  Pope,  and  meant 
it  for  satire.  Shakspeare,  who  knew  men  and  women 
much  better,  saw  that  it,  in  fact,  was  the  perfec- 


WILLIAM     COWPER.  321 


tion  of  women  to  be  characterless,  as  Desdcuiona  and 
Ophelia." 

I  am  not  a  frequent  reader  of  Pope's  poetry,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  I  am  not  an  earnest  admirer  of  it :  as 
this  lecture  has  probably  shown,  my  heart  is  not  in  it. 
I  will  say,  with  all  candour,  that  I  have  had  difficulty  in 
duly  appreciating  it  in  close  contrast  with  the  supe- 
rior poetry  that  has  gone  before.  While  preparing  this 
lecture,  I  have  chanced  to  light  upon  some  notes  made 
several  years  ago,  after  reading  Pope's  poems,  and  amidst 
a  variety  of  very  crude  and  puerile  criticism  I  find  one 
expression  which,  full  as  it  is  of  boyish  fervour,  is  yet  not 
inappropriate  to  my  more  recent  examination  of  the  same 
poetry.  The  words  were  simply  these  : — "  I  cannot  raise 
my  admiration  of  Pope  very  high,  because  I  have  just 
come  hot  from  Milton." 

A  short  space,  I  believe,  remains  before  I  reach  the 
verge  to  which  I  venture  to  tax  your  patience.  The 
injurious  influence  of  Pope's  poetry  in  enfeebling 
English  poetry,  confirmed  as  it  was  by  that  very  excep- 
tionable book  of-  its  kind,  Dr.  Johnson's  "Lives  of  the 
Poets,"  and  the  first  signs  of  the  gradual  regeneration 
of  imaginative  literature  in  the  latter  part  of  the  century, 
are  subjects  I  must  seek  some  opportunity  to  notice  in  a 
subsequent  lecture.  In  that  regeneration  no  one  shared 
more  largely  than  William  Cowper, — a  true  poet,  well 
inspired  and  well  disciplined  by  the  study  of  one  of  the 
chief  masters  of  English  song.  I  had  it  in  my  heart  to 
examine  with  you  Cowper's  whole  career  with  affec- 
tionate attention ;  but  the  limits  of  my  course  will  not 
permit  more  than  a  few  allusions,  which,  I  fear,  will  be 
as  unsatisfactory  to  you  as,  surely,  they  are  to  myself. 

VOL.  I.  21 


322  LECTURE     NINTII. 


His  story,  however,  is  a  familiar  one ;  his  poetry,  closely 
interwoven  with  it,  is  familiar  too.  The  great  value  of 
Cowper's  poetry  consists  in  its  departure  from  the  French 
school  of  English  verse.  Milton  was  his  youthful,  his 
life-long,  admiration  and  model : — 

"  Then  Milton  had  indeed  a  poet's  charms : 
New  to  my  taste,  his  Paradise  surpassed 
The  struggling  efforts  of  my  boyish  tongue 
To  speak  its  excellence.     I  danced  for  joy. 
I  marvelled  much  that,  at  so  ripe  an  age 
As  twice  seven  years,  his  beauties  had  then  first 
Engaged  my  wonder,  and,  admiring  still, 
And  still  admiring,  with  regret  supposed 
The  joy  half  lost  because  not  sooner  found." 

Cowper's  early  writings  were  love-verses,  meant  only  for 
the  eye  of  his  fair  cousin,  who  had  won  his  heart  and 
gave  her  own  in  return,  though  they  were  doomed  soon 
to  be  parted  forever  during  their  long  lives.  The  myste- 
rious malady  which  during  fifty  years  was  the  affliction 
of  his  life  came  on  in  prime  manhood.  It  would  have  a 
fearful  interest  to  trace  its  progress  from  its  first  intima- 
tions, and  the  fitful,  self-frustrating  attempt  at  suicide,  to 
his  residence  in  a  madhouse,  and  the  several  relapses  in 
after-years.  It  might  be  done  without  the  wantonness 
of  holding  "  vain  dalliance  with  the  misery  even  of  the 
dead;"  but  it  must  suffice  to  say  that  it  was  insanity  in 
its  most  appalling  form, — utter  hopelessness  of  the  salva- 
tion of  his  soul, — the  monomonia  of  the  desperate  dread 
of  eternal  misery.  In  the  very  tumult  of  his  first  attack 
he  describes  his  own  condition  in  a  few  verses,  the  most 
agonized,  probably,  that  ever  fell  from  poet's  pen;  some 
of  them  too  distressing  to  be  repeated.;  the  wilduess 


COWPER'S    INSANITY.  323 


increased  by  the  Sappliic   measure,  strange  in  English 
verse : — 

"  Hatred  and  vengeance,  my  eternal  portion, 
Scarce  can  endure  delay  for  execution, — 
Wait  with  impatient  readiness  to  seize  my 

Soul  in  a  moment. 

Man  disavows  and  Deity  disowns  me ; 
Hell  might  afford  my  miseries  a  shelter, 
Therefore,  hell  keeps  her  ever-hungry  mouths  all 
Bolted  against  me." 

When  bodily  darkness  fell  on  the  footsteps  of  Milton, 
he  imagined  it  the  overshadowing  of  heavenly  wings ; 
and  we  might  ascribe  to  a  like  cause  the  spiritual  dark- 
ness of  poor  Cowper's  days.  The  gloomy  thought  that 
had  taken  possession  of  him  was  never  relinquished ;  but 
often  it  seemed  to  fade  away  into  the  unreal  wretched- 
ness of  a  distressing  dream.  Happiness  was  ministered 
to  him  in  various  forms.  He  found  contentment  in  hum- 
ble occupations, — the  innocent  amusement  of  some  work 
of  mechanism  or  the  playful  companionship  of  the  pet 
animals  he  has  immortalized.  Friends,  the  kindest  and 
most  constant  man  was  ever  blessed  with,  were  providen- 
tially raised  up,  one  after  another,  to  watch  over  him. 

Criticism  could  find  few  better  themes  than  to  examine 
the  character  of  Cowpcr's  poetry, — to  show  it  always  pure 
and  gentle,  though  sometimes  overcast  by  the  melancholy 
of  his  malady  or  of  a  sombre  theology,  and  occasionally 
rising  from  its  usual  familiar  range  to  a  region  of  subli- 
mity. There  is  great  interest,  too,  in  tracing  how  his 
imagination  extracted  melody  from  his  madness, — the  evil 
spirit  that  troubled  him  charmed  to  rest  by  the  harpings 
of  his  Muse.  But  I  can  notice  only  the  most  beautiful 


324  LECTURE    NINTH. 


of  his  minor  poems.  It  was  Cowper's  misfortune  to  lose 
his  mother  before  he  was  six  years  of  age.  A  picture  of 
her  was  sent  to  him  when  he  was  nearly  sixty  years  old. 
At  the  sight  of  it  there  started  up  images  and  recollec- 
tions and  feelings  which  had  slept  for  more  than  half  a 
century.  Time  and  forgetfulness  were  baffled  by  a  sister 
art;  and  the  work  was  completed  by  Poetry  in  as  touching 
lines  as  ever  recorded  the  movements  of  a  poet's  memory 
into  the  shadowy  region  of  childhood  : — 

"Oh  that  those  lips  had  language!     Life  has  passed 
With  me  but  roughly  since  I  heard  thee  last. 
Those  lips  are  thine.     Thy  own  sweet  smile  I  see, — 
The  same  that  oft  in  childhood  solaced  me. 

Now,  while  that  face  renews  my  filial  grief, 
Fancy  shall  weave  a  charm  for  my  relief. 
Shall  steep  me  in  Elysian  reverie, — 
A  momentary  dream  that  thou  art  she. 

My  mother  !  when  I  learned  that  thou  wast  dead, 
Say,  wast  thou  conscious  of  the  tears  I  shed  ? 
Hovered  thy  spirit  o'er  thy  sorrowing  son  ? 
Wretch  even  then, — life's  journey  just  begun ! 
Perhaps  thou  gavest  me,  though  unfelt,  a  kiss, — 
Perhaps  a  tear,  if  souls  can  weep  in  bliss. 
Ah  !  that  maternal  smile !  it  answers,  Yes  ! 
I  heard  the  bell  tolled  on  thy  burial-day, 
I  saw  the  hearse  that  bore  thee  slow  away, 
And,  turning  from  my  nursery  window,  drew 
A  long,  long  sigh,  and  wept  a  last  adieu  ! 
But  was  it  such?     It  was.     Where  thou  art  gone, 
Adieus  and  farewells  are  a  sound  unknown  ! 
May  I  but  meet  thee  on  that  peaceful  shore, 
The  parting  word  shall  pass  my  lips  no  more  ! 
Thy  maidens,  grieved  themselves  at  my  concern, 
Oft  gave  me  promise  of  thy  quick  return. 


TIIE    CASTAWAY.  325 


What  ardently  I  wished  I  long  believed, 
And,  disappointed  still,  was  still  deceived ; 
By  expectation  every  day  beguiled, 
Dupe  of  to-morrow,  even  from  a  child. 
Thus,  many  a  sad  to-morrow  came  and  went, 
Till,  all  my  stock  of  infant  sorrows  spent, 
I  learned  at  last  submission  to  my  lot, 
But,  though  I  less  deplored  thee,  ne'er  forgot." 

It  did  not  please  Heaven  to  unweave  the  tangled  meshes 
of  poor  Cowper's  brain.  The  dark  delusion  of  despair 
hung  over  his  mind  to  the  very  verge  of  his  long  life  of 
just  threescore  years  and  ten.  His  last  original  piece, 
the  "Castaway,"  is,  indeed,  under  all  the  circumstances, 
one  of  the  most  affecting  ever  composed.  He  had  been 
reading,  in  Anson's  Voyages,  an  account  of  a  man  lost 
overboard  in  a  gale  of  wind:  that  appalling  casualty, 
which  often  consigns  the  sailor  to  a  helpless  fate,  is  told 
in  vivid  stanzas,  closing  with  the  saddest  possible  moral- 
izing:— , 

"  No  poet  wept  him ;  but  the  page 

Of  narrative  sincere, 
That  tells  his  name,  his  worth,  his  age, 

Is  wet  with  Anson's  tear : 
And  tears  by  bards  or  heroes  shed 
Alike  immortalize  the  dead. 

"I  therefore  purpose  not,  or  dream, 

Descanting  on  his  fate, 
To  give  the  melancholy  theme 

A  more  enduring  date  : 
But  misery  still  delights  to  trace 
Its  semblance  in  another's  case. 

No  voice  divine  the  storm  allayed, 
No  light  propitious  shone, 


320  LECTURE     NINTH. 


When,  snatched  from  all  effectual  aid, 

AVe  perished,  each  alone, — 
But  I  beneath  a  rougher  sea 
And  whelmed  in  deeper  gulfs  than  he." 

On  his  death-bed  Cowper  put  away  the  words  of 
consolation  and  hope  that  were  addressed  to  him,  thus 
showing,  in  the  words  of  a  friend  who  tended  his  last 
moments,  that,  though  his  spirit  was  on  the  eve  of  being 
invested  with  angelic  light,  the  darkness  of  delusion  still 
veiled  it.  As  if  to  mitigate  the  anguish  of  those  kiud 
hearts  which  had  watched  so  dark  a  death-bed,  the  ex- 
pression into  which  his  countenance  settled  after  death 
was  that  of  calmness  and  composure  mingled,  as  it  were, 
with  holy  surprise. 

For  these  very  imperfect  notices  of  Cowper,  falling  so 
very  far  below  the  interest  of  the  subject  and  my  own 
wishes,  let  me  make  some  amends  by  repeating  to  you 
some  admirable  stanzas,  entitled  "  Cowper's  Grave." 
They  are  from  a  living  woman's  pen : — 

COWPER'S  GRAVE. 

It  is  a  place  where  poets  crowned  may  feel  the  heart's  decaying; 
It  is  a  place  where  happy  saints  may  weep  amid  their  praying: 
Yet  let  the  grief  and  humbleness  as  low  as  silence  languish  ! 
Earth  surely  now  may  give  her  calm  to  whom  she  gave  her  anguish. 

0  poets !  from  a  maniac's  tongue  was  poured  the  deathless  singing ! 
0  Christian !  at  your  cross  of  hope  a  hopeless  hand  was  clinging! 
0  men !  this  man,  in  brotherhood,  your  weary  paths  beguiling, 
Groaned  inly  while  he  taught  you  peace,  and  died  while  ye  were  smiling. 

And  now,  what  time  ye  all  may  read  through  dimming  tears  his  story, 
How  discord  on  the  music  fell,  and  darkness  on  the  glory, 


COWPER'S    GRAVE.  327 


And  how,  when,  one  by  one,  sweet  sounds  and  wandcringlights  departed, 
lie  wore  no  less  a  loving  face  because  so  broken-hearted, — 

lie  shall  be  strong  to  sanctify  the  poet's  high  vocation, 

And  bow  the  meekest  Christian  down  in  meeker  adoration ; 

Nor  ever  shall  he  be,  iu  praise,  by  wise  or  good  forsaken ; 

Named  softly,  as  the  household  name  of  one  whom  God  hath  taken. 

'With  quiet  sadness,  and  no  gloom,  I  learn  to  think  upon  him 

With  meekness,  that  is  gratefulness  to  God  whose  heaven  hath  won 

him, 

Who  suffered  once  the  madness-cloud  to  his  own  love  to  blind  him, 
13ut  gently  led  the  blind  along  where  breath  and  bird  could  find  him, 

And  wrought  within  his  shattered  brain  such  quick  poetic  senses 
As  hills  have  language  for,  and  stars,  harmonious  influences ; 
The  pulse  of  dew  upon  the  grass  kept  his  within  its  number, 
And  silent  shadows  from  the  trees  refreshed  him  like  a  slumber. 

Wild,  timid  hares  were  drawn  from  woods  to  share  his  home-caressc.*, 
Uplooking  to  his  human  eyes  with  sylvan  tendernesses ; 
The  very  world,  by  God's  constraint,  from  falsehood's  ways  removing, 
Its  women  and  its  men  became,  beside  him,  true  and  loving. 

But  while  in  blindness  he  remained  unconscious  of  the  guiding, 
And  things  provided  came  without  the  sweet  sense  of  providing, 
He  testified  this  solemn  truth,  though  frenzy-desolated: — 
Nor  man  nor  nature  satisfy  whom  only  God  created ! 

Like  a  sick  child  that  knoweth  not  his  mother  while  she  blesses, 

And  drops  upon  his  burning  brow  the  coolness  of  her  kisses, 

That   turns    his    fevered   eyes   around, — "My   mother!    whcre's  my 

mother?" 
As  if  such  tender  words  and  looks  could  come  from  any  other ! 

The  fever  gone,  with  leaps  of  heart,  he  sees  her  bending  o'er  him, 
Her  face  all  pale  from  watchful  love,  the  unweary  love  she  bore  him  ! 
Thus  woke  the  poet  from  the  dream  his  life's  long  fever  gave  him, 
Beneath  those  deep  pathetic  eyes  which  closed  in  death  to  save  hiiu. 


32?  LECTURE     NINTH. 


Thus?     Oh,  not  thus!    No  type  of  earth  could  image  that  awaking 
Wherein  he  scarcely  heard  the  chant  of  seraphs  round  him  breaking, 
Or  felt  the  new  immortal  throb  of  soul  from  body  parted, 
But  felt  those  eyes  alone,  and  knew  "My  Saviour"  not  deserted ! 

Deserted !    Who  hath  dreamt  that,  when  the  cross  in  darkness  rested 
Upon  the  Victim's  hidden  face,  no  love  was  manifested  ? 
What  frantic  hands  outstretched  have  e'er  the  atoning  drops  averted? 
What  tears  have  washed  them  from  the  soul,  that  one  should  be  deserted  ? 

Deserted !  God  could  separate  from  his  own  essence  rather, 
And  Adam's  sins  have  swept  between  the  righteous  Son  and  Father; 
Yea,  once  ImmanuePs  orphaned  cry  his  universe  hath  shaken; 
It  went  up  single,  echoless  : — "  My  God,  I  am  forsaken !" 

It  went  up  from  the  Holy's  lips  amid  his  lost  creation, 

That  of  the  lost  no  son  should  use  those  words  of  desolation ; 

That  earth's  worst  frenzies,  marring    hope,  should   mar  not  hope's 

fruition, 
And  I,  on  Cowper's  grave,  should  see  his  rapture  in  a  vision  ! 


END    OF    VOL.    I. 


STEREOTYPED   BY   L.   JOHNSON   &   CO. 
PIIILADtLI'llIA. 


University  of  California 

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